- Ellen Prokop is an art historian
who specializes in Spanish art
of the 16th and 17the centuries.
Her articles are published and forthcoming
in The Hispanic Research Journal
and The Journal of the
History of Collections
and she has contributed essays
to several edited volumes,
including Ashgate's Companion to El Greco,
which will appear later this year.
She's currently preparing
two book-length manuscripts,
an overview of the
collecting and exhibition
of Bartolome Murillo,
Diego Velazquez and El Greco
and an annotated translation
of Fray Juan Ricci’s
artistic treatise of around 1660,
La pintura sabla.
Sabia, sorry.
Her post-doctoral research
has been supported
by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation,
the the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
and the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
She regularly teaches undergraduate
and graduate level courses
at New York University and Hunter College
of the city of New York
and even as she also contributes mightily
to the well being of the
Frick Art Reference Library
through her day job as an
associate photoarchivist
for which we treasure her presence.
This morning Ellen will set the stage
for the presentations to follow
with her paper titled
The Father of Modern Painting,
El Greco's Critical Fortunes.
So please join me in
welcoming Ellen Prokop.
(applause)
- Good morning.
First off I would like to thank Inge
for very kindly inviting me to speak
to you this morning
and also I too have to thank
Samantha and Esmee.
How is this?
Better.
Okay, well first off,
I want Inge to hear
that I am very grateful to her
for inviting me to speak
to you this morning
and I also want to
thank Samantha and Esmee
for all of their efforts to make sure
that today's event is a success.
So El Greco's critical fortunes.
From the decline of his reputation
in the 17th century
to the reevaluation of his achievement
in the modern era
has received substantial study.
One of the central
themes of the scholarship
is that the recovery of
El Greco's reputation
was accompanied by the development
and dissemination of several myths
about the artist.
Myths that have shaped
current understanding,
excuse me,
of his life and work.
This morning I will
expand on the scholarship
and survey El Greco's critical fortunes
through the lens of
his collecting history.
I will focus primarily
on the developing taste for the artist
in Spain, England, France
and central Europe.
Regions where significant activity
and the market for the old master
occurred before the 20th century
when enthusiasm for the
artist finally took hold
among American collectors,
a phenomenon that will
be explored in detail
in the seven papers that follow today.
Controversy characterized
El Greco's career
and it has defined his critical fortunes.
Throughout his lifetime,
the artist quarreled with his patrons
and alienated many of them
with his litigious nature
and original style.
His protracted legal battle
with the Canons of the Cathedral Toledo
over the price of the Disrobing of Christ.
There you go.
Executed for the sacristy
marginalized this important
source of patronage
and Philip the Second famously rejected
the Martyrdom of the Theban Legion
that he had commissioned for
the basilica at El Escorial,
finding it unsuitable for devotions.
Fortunately for the artist,
he located a clientele
among the private citizens of Toledo
that ensured professional success
during his lifetime.
The elite of the city commissioned
altar pieces for the funerary chapels
and portraits for their residences.
They also purchased great quantities
of devotional paintings
by the master and his workshop,
92 of which have been located
in 36 17th century Toledon collections.,
a testament to the artist's popularity
in his own time.
Yet El Greco's reputation
deteriorated rapidly
as the century progressed.
Although his name occasionally surfaces
in 18th century inventories,
owners generally inherited
rather than pursued his work.
The decline of El Greco's reputation
can be charted in the literature.
His earliest biographers were ambivalent
when assessing his art,
preferring his more naturalistic portraits
to his late religious works.
Those of 18th and early
19th century, however,
were positively hostile to all paintings
from his brush,
no matter what the genre.
The artist and art
theorist Francisco Pacheco,
who visited El Greco in 1611
was cautious in his assessment
of the old master.
Pacheco maintained that
he disagreed with many
of El Greco's opinions,
especially the artist's
distain for drawing
and he was positively shocked
by what he called his cruel dogs
and yet Pacheco admitted
that El Greco ranked
among the greatest artists of his time.
Antonio Palomino,
the most important Spanish art historian
and theorist of the 18th century
was also equivocal
when discussing El Greco's work.
Palomino asserted that El Greco
was a superior portrait painter,
but he condemned his late style,
which he called extravagant.
He ascribed the originality
of El Greco's later manner
to the frequent confusion of his work
with that of his master, Titian.
To differentiate his hand,
Palomino postulated,
El Greco resorted to
such stylistic extremes
that his work became plagued
by disjointed drawing and garish color.
John Augustine Theon Bemuth
upheld this critical tradition
in his seminal dictionary
of Spanish artists in 1800.
Following up on Palomino,
he agreed that El Greco adopted
an extravagant second manner
to distinguish his work from Titian's.
The conception of El Greco
as this misguided artist
struggling to out-Titian Titian
by adopting a manner that was even
more loose, gesturall and dynamic
than that of the Italian master
continued into the 19th century
when French writers gave this invention
a new twist.
Chauvinistically, French critics linked
El Greco's artistic struggle
to the oppression that they maintained
he must have experienced in the socially
and politically conservative world
of early modern Castille,
due to his unconventional style
as well as his foreign birth.
Such relentless
persecution, they reasoned,
produced the intense mental struggle
and spiritual anguish
that could only result in roses.
Thus the legend of El Greco, the lunatic
whose frenzied late manner,
characterized by flickering lights
and elongated forums,
mirrored his deteriorating mental state,
was born.
Jadelique Kidday promoted this myth
in his popular dictionary,
Spanish Painting of 1816,
decrying El Greco as a madman
who led his apprentices astray.
Kidday had been active in Spain
as an artistic advisor to Joseph Bonaparte
during the French occupation
and he oversaw the transfer
of scores of paintings
from the royal collection
in Madrid to Paris
where they were exhibited
with other spoils
from until the war
at the Musee Napoleon,
established at The Louvre in 1802.
The museum's exhibition of
Spanish painting was popular,
introducing the French public
to a relatively neglected national school
and always opportunistic,
Kidday's dictionary capitalized
on the growing interest
among French audiences
in Spanish art.
Now although many of
the museum's paintings
were returned to Madrid
after the defeat at Waterloo,
the large-scale export of Spanish art
would continue throughout the century.
The suppression of Spanish monasteries
from 1835 to 1837
resulted in the removal
of thousands of works of art
from religious institutions
across the peninsula
and while many of these works
were incorporated into national museums,
many entered private collections
or appeared on the art market.
The formation of the Spanish gallery
of King Louis Philippe,
one of the most controversial
collections ever assembled,
also contributed to the
diaspora of Spanish art.
Benefitting from the recent privatization
of the monasteries,
French agents operating
under the direction
of Baron Taylor,
traveled secretly to Spain
from 1835 to 1837
and secured more than 400 paintings
for the king's collection,
which was exhibited at The Louvre
from 1838 to the first day of 1849
and attracted visitors from across Europe.
Surprisingly, Louis Philippe
retained the collection
after his abdication in 1848,
even though it had been purchased
with public funds.
Three years after his death in 1850,
it was sold at auction in London,
a major event in the collecting history
of Spanish art.
Yet although these two
exhibitions at The Louvre
resulted in a taste for Spanish painting
among European audiences,
El Greco failed to captivate the public.
Few critics discussed his work.
They preferred to discuss the
supposed self portraits of Velazquez
and the dramatic martyrdoms of Ribera.
On the rare occasion when an author
did turn his attention
to El Greco's paintings,
he or she invariably interpreted them
as representative of the artist's
supposed mental illness.
For example,
the Scottish spanophiles for
William Stirling-Maxwell,
who assembled the first major collection
of Spanish art in Great Britain,
contended that the old master
"has been justly described as an artist
"who alternated between
reason and delirium
"and displayed his great genius
only at lucid intervals."
Charmed by the so-called portrait
of the artist's daughter
on display at the Spanish Gallery,
he was shocked by the later ateration
of the shepherds exhibited nearby.
The painting, he determined,
featured El Greco's
"most extravagant,
"delirious style
"in which the lights on reddish draperies
"and dark clouds
"are expressed by green hints
"of so unhappy a color
"that these harmless objects
"resemble masses of bruised
and discolored flesh."
Stirling-Maxwell and the
English writer Richard Ford,
who published a very popular book
on Spanish culture in 1845,
were both major forces in
promoting the appreciation
of Spanish art among
English-speaking audiences.
Both echoed Palomino's opinions.
They praised El Greco's portraiture
and they condemned his late style.
Thus, it is not surprising
that when Stirling-Maxwell
began building his collection
of Spanish paintings,
he pursued El Greco's portraits.
Between 1851 and 1862,
he acquired six paintings
attributed to El Greco,
four of which were portraits.
Stirling-Maxwell's interest
in El Greco, however,
was the exception.
As a rule,
when European collectors
turned their attention
to Spanish paintings,
they sought out works by
Murillo and Velazquez.
In fact, the few El Greco's bought
by English, French and German collectors
in the 18th and early 19th centuries,
had been mistaken on their
acquisition for works
by leading masters of the Venetian school,
such as Titian and Tintoretto
and Leoardino Versona.
It is essentially an accident
that an exceptional canvas
from El Greco's Italian period
is in Dresden.
The appreciation of El Greco's late style
took much longer to develop.
Ironically, it was the artist's reputation
as a madman
that inspired in part
the eventual reassessment
of his late religious work.
Artists, poets and writers
of the Romantic movement
reinterpreted the old master
as the preeminent example
of an unfettered,
if slightly unhinged,
creative force,
devoted entirely to expressing
an intense subjective experience.
They promoted El Greco's second manner
as the prototype of the more authentic
artistic expression that they advanced
in their work
and their passion for the old master
extended to more adventurous collectors,
the most famous being Francisco De Goya,
who owned a devotional painting
of The Virgin Mary.
Perhaps a canvas similar to the one
down in Strasbourg.
Inspired by the relative
isolation of Spain
and the perceived
exoticism of its culture.
Theophile Gautier traveled
to the country in 1840
and recorded his observations
in a popular book.
He actively sought out works by El Greco
and his comments presented
a much more sympathetic assessment
of El Greco's late style
than had been previously published.
For example,
he asserted that The Baptism of Christ
"belongs entirely to El
Greco's second manner,
"an abuse of black and white,
"violent contrast,
"peculiar colors and contorted attitudes,
"but it is all inspired
by a depraved energy,
"which reveals the great painter
"and the madman of genius.
"Few pictures have interested me
"as those of El Greco."
Significantly,
Gautier misidentified
several of the pictures
he viewed abroad.
What he described as El
Greco's most dynamic version
of The Crucifixion actually is a work
by Mateo Cerezo the Younger.
Gautier's misidentification, however,
are understandable.
His knowledge of the artist
had been molded by myth.
He was looking for expressive brushwork
that betrayed a frenzied application
and rich colors shot through back
that gave vent to inner turmoil.
Thus although such misattributions
frustrate scholarship,
they are a fascinating aspect
of his collecting history.
The formal qualities that
critics and collectors
consider characteristic
of El Greco's style
as well as those that they overlooked,
are instructive issues for us to consider.
Gautier's enthusiasm,
however misplaced,
is credited for inspiring his friend,
Eugene Delacroix,
to collect one of El Greco's paintings.
Delacroix's acquisition
established a trend.
In the second half of the 19th century,
French artists and the
critics promoting their work
were the leading collectors
of El Greco's paintings.
So, well Romantics reveled in El Greco's
unique expression of visionary experience,
avant-garde artists and their supporters
focused on the formal complexities
of his painting.
Seeing in its dramatic contrast
of light and shadow,
compressed space
and gestural brushwork,
confirmation of their
new language of painting,
one that directed attention
to the artistic act.
Ed Manet, Gustave Courbet and Paul Cezanne
copied El Greco's paintings in Madrid
are from print productions,
working through the
central issues of their art
from a new angle.
As this comparison underscores, however,
it is clear that El Greco served as a sign
for the aspirations of
the French avant-garde,
not a catalyst.
It is not certain if
Cezanne ever saw a painting
by El Greco and it may not matter
because in the end,
Cezanne didn't need El Greco.
El Greco, however,
needed him.
It was the correspondences
between the paintings
of El Greco and Cezanne
as perceived by the critics Morris Dinee,
Jules Myochoffa and Roger Fry
that led them to conclude
that El Greco was the prophet
of modernism and knowledge of his work
would promote increased comprehension
of Cezanne and modern art
and as some later
critics would also claim,
cubism, too.
Hugo Schulte,
the director of the Apotonick,
summarized their postion neatly.
"As admiration for Greco grows,
"so will understanding of Cezanne."
In effect,
avant-garde artists and the critics
who supported their work,
discovered in El Greco,
a lingua franca,
for modernism
and the collecting activity of this group
highlights their artistic ideals
as well as their ambitions to establish
their own versions of modernism.
At the forefront of
this group of collectors
was the poet and critic Zacharie Astruc,
who owned two works by El Greco.
Enthusiastically proclaiming him
the Delacroix of the renaissance,
he encouraged many
to study his example.
Manet's famous trip to Madrid
in August of 1865
affirmed his appreciation
of the old master.
In a letter to Astruc,
he noted that El Greco's paintings
were indeed bazaar,
but his portraits,
which he had studied very attentively
at The Prado,
were beautiful.
Jean-Francois Millet acquired at least
three paintings by El Greco,
all of religious subjects.
Saint Ildefonso,
Saint Francis in Mediation
and a Saint Dominic in Prayer.
According to contemporary reports,
the Saint Ildefonso was installed
over the artist's bed
while the other two canvases
hung in his studio.
The Saint Francis eventually
entered the collection
of Leo and Gertrude Stein,
where it was displayed among works
by Cezanne, Acosto and Mitisse
before the rupture between
the siblings in 1914
led to the division of their assets
and Leo secured the El Greco.
The images of Saint Ildefonso and Dominic
were eventually acquired by Edgar Degas
and both remained in his collection
until his death.
Degas's extensive collection,
which included hundreds of paintings
by Delacroix and Ang,
masterpieces by Manet
and a large group of Japanese prints,
was assembled rapidly
between 1890 and 1904.
He owned only a few old master paintings,
which were surprisingly unexceptional,
except for the two El Greco's.
These paintings were apparently acquired
on the advice of his two close friends,
Henri Rouart
and the printmaker and publisher,
Michael Mouse,
both of whom were noted collectors of
19th century French painting,
although their interest
extended to a handful
of old masters whose work they believed
shared stylistic affinities
with the avant-garde.
Rouart purchased four
Greco's during his career
and Mouse reportedly owned two,
although I've been able to trace only one.
These enthusiasts were
renowned among their peers
for their patriarch promotion
of the French school
and the innovative installation
of their holdings.
Visitors to their homes
would find an El Greco
installed next to a Delacroix,
a Poussin juxtaposed with a Degas.
Such displays that illustrated
the collectors' conception
of the continuity
of the western artistic tradition
from the early modern
period to the modern,
would become a motif
in the collecting history of El Greco.
Degas' collection sought to document
the origins of the grand tradition
of 19th century French painting
and establish his place within it
as a modern old master.
Although a foreigner,
El Greco was absorbed into this tradition
because the French
Romantics had legitimized
his role as a precursor
to the avant-garde.
Degas considered founding a private museum
to preserve this unique
record of French painting,
but his plan was never realized
and the majority of his holdings
were dispersed in 1918,
the year after his death.
Now, it is significant that
several of the El Greco's
circulating among this
tightly knit group of
friends and colleagues
had been included in the Paris sale
of the collection of
the Contessa De Cinto,
widow of the Spanish politician,
Avi De Cinto Cortez,
the first Conto De Cinto.
Like the London sale of the
Spanish gallery of 1853,
the 1865 auction of the
collection De Cinto,
was a major source of Spanish paintings
for European collectors,
releasing 145 works,
including 18 El Greco's into the market.
It is also significant that
the handful of paintings
I have mentioned
were all in private hands.
Despite the rapid rise of El Greco's star
in the 1890s,
it was still difficult for the public
to see examples of his work
outside of Spain.
This, however,
was going to change.
In El Greco's adopted homeland,
interest in the artist had
been steadily increasing
throughout the second
half of the 19th century,
due in part to the robust art market
that had developed in the
wake of the suppression
of the monasteries,
a market that engendered
a new type of collector.
Young, middle class, cosmopolitan,
that was intrigued by
El Greco's originality.
An additional factor
was the arrival in 1872
at The Prado Museum
of a group of 15 paintings
attributed to El Greco
that included magnificent examples
of his late religious work.
Before that year,
Spanish audiences had considered El Greco
a master of portraiture
and a crucial stylistic link between
the Spanish and Venetian schools
because most of his paintings on display
were portraits installed next to works
by Titian and Veronese.
The 1872 acquisition altered the public's
perception of the artist,
establishing his reputation
as a master of religious painting
and restoring him finally
to the Spanish school.
For Santiago Lucerno and Agnetha Deardo,
Spanish artists active in Paris
during the 1890s,
El Greco,
a Greek by birth,
but a Spaniard by choice in their opinion,
offered a model for an innovative,
national style.
One that was bold and inventive,
yet expressed the purported nobility,
purity and spirituality
of the Spanish character.
Influenced in part
by contemporary Spanish intellectuals
dedicated to regenerating their country's
art and culture,
they regarded El Greco as
a brave anti-classicist,
an exemplar of the country's past glory
and borrowed certain
features of his painting,
including his dark outlines
and seemingly arbitrary use of color
to forge styles that
honored their homeland
while destroying the outdated precepts
of the academy.
Both artists owned paintings by
or attributed to El Greco
and encouraged their colleagues,
including the young Picasso
to study his example.
The full restoration of
the artist's reputation
among the Spanish public
occurred in the first
decade of the 20th century.
In 1902, The Prado mounted an exhibition
dedicated to the artist,
a key event in the rehabilitation
of his reputation.
Significantly,
this was the first monographic exhibition
sponsored by the museum.
1908, however,
marks the moment when universal opinion
turned in El Greco's favor,
including his dynamic second manner.
The 1908 Celome Detome in Paris
featured a room of 21 paintings
attributed to El Greco.
This was the only time
the progressive Celome Detome
devoted exhibition space
to an old master.
Many of the paintings on display, however,
were workshop copies or forgeries
of his late manner
and this demonstrates that the
market for El Greco's work,
especially his second manner,
was competitive,
since unscrupulous dealers
found it profitable
to manufacture their own products.
The same year Manuel Castillo
produced a meticulously compiled
and extensively illustrated catalog resume
of the artist's work.
Publications on El Greco
in French, German, English
and of course Spanish,
escalated in the wake of
Castillo's pioneering catalog.
These studies ranged from transcription
of archivable discoveries
to personal responses to the artist.
One of the most famous
was Myochoffa's Spanish Journey of 1910,
in which the German critic explicated
his theory that El Greco
was the father of modern painting.
His opinions were supported
by his English colleague,
Roger Fry,
who inspired by his study
of the El Greco's on view
in Lionel Harris's Spanish
art galleries in London,
wrote a series of articles in 1913
that compared the old
master's feelings for
"plastic unity and rhythmic amplitude."
Two of the contemporary
developments in European art
that he most admired,
concluding that
"here is an old master
who is not merely modern,
"but actually appears a good many steps
"ahead of us,
"turning back to show us the way."
Now Harris and Fry,
I know, I love this picture,
encourage the director
of the National Gallery
to purchase that painting
I just showed you,
the one in London
and also,
it was bought from Harris's gallery
and Fry's support of the acquisition
was critical to it's success.
Greco mania or El Greco fever,
as the press described it,
was spreading east
and this is the man I
don't want to talk about.
Two major exhibitions
featuring works by the artist
were held in Munich and Dusseldorf
in 1911 and 1912, respectively
and both showcased the collection
of the Hungarian entrepreneur,
Marcell Nemes.
Like his French colleagues,
Nemes avidly collected impressionist
and post-impressionist artists
as well as the old masters he believe
shared stylistic affinities with them,
forming a collection that in his opinion
privileged sensory experience
and drew formal parallels
across centuries and national boundaries.
Nemes was not just an enthusiast,
but a collector as well,
an investor.
In 1911, he contacted Schulte,
the newly appointed
director of the Apotonick
and offered to loan the gallery
several of his paintings,
including his eight El Greco's,
an offer that caused concern
among many in the museum's world
as the exhibition of a private collection
in a national museum
appeared suspiciously commercial.
Despite their qualms,
Schulte was very interested.
Like Nemes,
Schulte believed that old master paintings
should not be isolated in galleries
dedicated to discreet time periods,
but they should be displayed
next to contemporary works of art,
thus forging compelling connections
across the history of western art.
Putting this methodology into play,
Schulte actively pursued an El Greco
for the gallery in 1909
despite it's astronomical price
because he hoped to create a new awareness
of universal aesthetic values
by hanging the museum's latest acquisition
next to works by modern masters
he had supposedly inspired,
a group that was now extended
to the early German expressionists.
Once again,
El Greco's extravagant second manner
was undergoing a reevaluation.
This time, however,
it was interpreted as proto-expressionist,
an exceptional model of
expressive distortion
and painterly impact.
In the summer of 1912,
the second exhibition of Nemes's holdings,
including his El Greco's,
opened in Dusseldorf,
attracting huge crowds and much press.
The entrepreneurial aspect of this show
was not disguised.
All 122 paintings on
display were for sale.
Nemes offered his entire collection
to the city for 6 million Marks,
but the deal was not completed.
The following year,
Nemes sold the majority of his collection,
including 12 canvases
attributed to El Greco
at auction in Paris.
Nemes's friend,
Baron Herzog,
a high-profile Hungarian
collector and banker,
acquired six of the El
Greco's at the sale.
Herzog would purchase an additional
three El Greco's during his career
and become one of the
most important collectors
of the old master in Europe.
Five of his El Greco's eventually entered
the Museum of Fine Art in Budapest,
although not all under
favorable circumstances.
The Herzog collection was seized
by the Hungarian government
between 1945 and 1946
and four of the El Greco's
were eventually transferred
to the National Gallery.
As the collecting activities
of Nemes and Herzog demonstrate
and the high price that
Schulte was forced to pay
for Munich's El Greco
confirms demand for El
Greco's painting was intense
by the second decade
of the 20th century.
The artist deserved
celebrity was established
and ironically,
the critics, collectors and dealers
who had promoted him
were becoming the victims
of their own success.
By promoting the old master
as a precursor to modernism,
they had set new standards
for collecting and connoisseurship.
Recognizing El Greco's
achievement had become a sign
of enlightened appreciation,
advanced taste and a discerning eye
and acquiring his work
offered the opportunity to participate
in contemporary artistic developments.
As the prices for his work escalated,
El Greco's currency as the index
of the cultivated and privileged patron,
was established.
300 years after his death,
El Greco was transformed
into a commercial product,
one that served as a litmus test
for a new type of collector,
curator and museum director.
European enthusiasts, however,
reeling from momentous
social and economic pressures
could no longer afford this luxury.
American dealers and collectors
moved into and quickly dominated
the market for the old master
with dire consequences for Europe
and of course Spain.
Sadly,
the story of El Greco's
remarkable comeback
has a bittersweet ending.
The story of the spectacular
acquisitions of American collectors
and our own good fortune here in New York,
plays out against the backdrop
of Europe's irreparable loss.
So to conclude,
considering El Greco's reputation
as the father of modern painting,
it is remarkable how a few of his works
were accessible to artists
active in the late 19th century.
For example,
the National Gallery in London
owned only two El Greco's
at the turn of the century
and The Louvre
acquired its first El Greco in 1903
and Schulte secured
Munich's El Greco in 1909.
It is also remarkable
how many of the paintings
in private collections
and exhibited in London, Paris,
Munich and Dusseldorf
were workshop copies and forgeries.
As Jonathon Brown and others have noted,
despite their professed
admiration for the old master,
few members of the avant-garde
entertained a subtle understanding
of the old master,
especially his unconventional career
and challenging work.
As these scholars have argued,
the avant-garde did not
discover in El Greco
the inspiration to break with the academy,
but rather validation
of their innovations.
El Greco was not the
father of modern painting
as much as its patron saint.
Separating fact from fiction,
the man from the myths,
has been the task of
the present generation
of El Greco scholars.
It is not, however,
one shared by specialists
of collecting studies.
I don't mean to suggest to that
we need to undo all of their work,
but the myths,
misattributions,
copies and forgeries,
are crucial to our understanding
of the phenomenon of El Greco fever.
Whether or not the 20th century collectors
fascinated by El Greco
consider the artist a source of modernism
or a symptom of it,
in the end may not be the most
critical issue to address.
El Greco served as a symbol of modernism
and to appreciate his achievement,
if not the full implications
of his reevaluation,
was to be part of the club.
Today's talks will shed more light
on the development of
the taste for El Greco,
tracing the implications of Greco mania
for American collecting.
Thank you.
(applause)
