Original subtitles

El Greco was a 16th century maverick, a curious figure full of contradictions.

He was a devout and orthodox Catholic, but a radical artist.

He was born a Greek, trained in Italy, but made his name in Spain.

His ecstatic, stylized religious images came from a startling imagination rather than from nature.

And it wasn't until the 20th century that his work was fully understood.

Domenikos Theatokopoulos, who thankfully became known as El Greco, or the Greek,

was born in Candia, in Crete, in 1541.

Since the 13th century, this island had been part of a vastly wealthy Venetian Empire.

Although the Venetians terrorized and often enslaved the inhabitants of Crete,

they had a hands-off approach to the island's Greek Orthodox churches,

allowing them to continue to commission their traditional religious icon paintings

in a style known as Byzantine art.

By the time he was 25, El Greco had established himself,

decorating churches and painting altarpieces.

Cretan artists were naturally exposed to Italian influences.

Buildings on Crete were designed in a Venetian style,

and the works of Italian Renaissance artists were popular.

The beginnings of a fusion of styles between Greek and Venetian

can be seen in El Greco's first signed work,

a damaged panel painting in the Church of the Dormition

on the island of Syros, north of Crete,

showing the death of the Virgin,

and thought to be painted before 1567.

It's a simple image with only a hint of perspective,

painted in the manner of Byzantine icons,

gold on wood with unnaturalistic figures.

But Crete was a small place and El Greco had big ambitions,

and so he moved to a city built on a much grander synthesis

of the Byzantine and the Renaissance, Venice.

Venice.

Venice

Venice

Venice

and this is a work that El Greco begins to paint soon after he's arrived in Venice

and it's here that we see him trying to find his own artistic voice

it's a small scale work that shows that he's an icon painter by training who's trying to expand the

scale and the ambition in the way he's working and what we notice first of all is how much he's

trying to take on board the lessons of the Italian Renaissance particularly the musculature

owes something to both Michelangelo and to Leonardo these classical ordered figures

likewise the colour scheme here which is a little bit garish a little bit clumsy but he's been looking

hard at the current stars of the Venetian art world people like Titian and Tintoretto

the biblical saga of Christ cleaning up his father's house cleansing the temple purging it of money

lenders of prostitutes of market traders selling their various wares was not a common theme in

western religious art but it seems to have struck a personal chord with El Greco himself who was

trying to purge his own artistic style of the Byzantine influences that he'd grown up with

and develop his own Italian way of doing things but also it had a resonance with what was happening

more broadly in the Europe to which El Greco had just moved

artists in Catholic Europe at this time were under pressure from the church about 25 years or so before

El Greco was born people began actively to express their resentment and protest against the corruption wealth

and power of the Catholic Church these would-be reformers became known as Protestants in El Greco's time though the

Catholic Church was trying to win back its popularity in a movement that became known as the counter-reformation the Roman Church made attempts to resolve its internal problems and to reform itself and reaffirm its dominance and importance

art was naturally a potent means of proclaiming the magisterial power of the church a visual means of

enforcing Catholic values and to inspire the faithful El Greco himself deeply religious became one of the most striking of counter-reformation painters

after three years

after three years in Venice El Greco traveled south to the center of both Catholic and classical culture Rome

here he found much artistic inspiration but little commercial success

although he painted portraits and religious paintings for a few private clients he failed to

secure any important commissions or find major patrons to support him and so by 1577 a disillusioned El Greco was on the

move again this time to Spain Spanish art was dominated by two patrons the court and the church

both were effectively controlled by one man King Philip the second the richest and most powerful ruler in Europe

the Spanish city in which El Greco settled and which he made his own over the next three decades was Toledo

he was 36 when he arrived here he spoke little or no Castilian but this city the center of the Roman

Catholic Church in Spain was relatively international there were numerous languages spoken here it was

also an intellectual center and quickly El Greco felt at home Toledo was an ambitious city it described

itself as imperial based on the fact that Philip II's court had been here for a couple of years and the

city still harbored hopes that it might lure the court away from Madrid so when El Greco arrived the city

was in the middle of an ambitious program of urban regeneration streets were being widened old

buildings were being pulled down new palazzos were being built and a new city hall all around the

city's most enduring monument the vast Roman Catholic Cathedral

significantly it was from the cathedral that El Greco gained one of his first commissions in Toledo

it was for this epic painting the disrobing of christ which was commissioned to be hung in the

vestry where the priests changed into their robes this is el greco's first great masterpiece i think

it's the painting where he truly finds his artistic voice and it shows christ being stripped of his

garments before he's nailed to the cross in crucifixion and if you look in the foreground of the painting

perhaps the most savage and the most moving image is the man gouging away at the wood of the cross to

prepare the holes through which the nails will be driven having pierced christ's hand and feet

now the subject itself is there in the gospels particularly the gospels of luke and john

but it doesn't really appear in western art it's a subject that has precedence in byzantine art though

so it's el greco's origins being moved right center stage when he's here in spain the details of the

painting are extraordinary but also quite odd the figure next to him to the left wears armor and has been

identified by scholars as being both king herod and pontius pilate at one and the same time

behind christ two figures seem to be clawing at his robe and likewise the green figure to his right

is pulling at it and it hints at the fact they're going to be casting lots for it soon after christ has

been nailed up on the cross so what el greco is doing is compressing different moments in the crucifixion

saga and from christ's life into one particular painting that conveys a sense of narrative

but also of dynamism color too is incredibly strong this use of yellow contrasting throughout the

picture with this dominant vibrant red that is both symbolic of christ's sacrifice to come the

blood that will be shed but it also is the center the heart of the picture and it emerges out as the rest

of the painting recedes and that gives the painting an extraordinary visual tension and what we ultimately

experience when we look at this work is a sense of a picture trying to burst out these forms are

incredibly claustrophobic in the foreground it's the only bit of space the stones and pebbles and earth

around christ's feet and all these aspects merge together in the painting and contribute to its

underlying power which is to convey a sense of impending doom the doom of crucifixion however this

painting was to cause a dramatic fallout between el greco and the church in 1579 on completion of the

disrobing of christ el greco strongly disagreed with the cathedral over the price of the picture

in 16th century spain patrons and artists used a special system to value religious works which involved

the artist and patron each nominating appraisers to determine the value of a completed painting

if both parties couldn't reach an agreed figure an arbitrator would make the final decision

this system meant that artists gambled their time energy and materials

on a project without knowing how much they'd be paid

al greco was proud of his art and felt strongly that it should be well rewarded

he'd come from italy and expected to be treated like a renaissance artist

not a medieval artisan

he often contested appraisers decisions occasionally resorting to court proceedings

which cost him more time and money

al greco's appraisers had valued the disrobing of christ at 900 ducats

the cathedrals appraisers at 228 ducats

a two and a half year legal battle ensued

with the artist eventually receiving only 317 ducats

more significantly el greco had soured his relationship with his first major patron

luckily enough though he'd come to the attention of the other important patron in the land

king philip the second philip's role in the history of spanish art can't be underestimated

his ambitious royal building program in madrid created demand for new artworks to decorate the

palaces as a result artists flocked to the city philip inherited a vast art collection when he became

king then through his travels he began to amass more international works in particular those by titian

and other venetian masters

it was this body of work that was to have such a great effect on the spanish artists who were

fortunate enough to gain access to the royal collections

many of these works were housed at el escorial the vast monastery complex north of madrid built as a

monument to philip's father charles the holy roman emperor

more art was needed for the extensive decoration of the escorial and many spanish artists were

desperate for their work to be included and this was el greco's spectacular attempt to get his work

in the growing collection at the escorial it was commissioned by philip the second as an altarpiece

and it depicts the martyrdom of saint maurice now saint maurice was an early third century roman

legion leader who was also a christian who refused to pay homage to the pagan gods and instead was

martyred and what we see in the foreground is saint maurice himself dressed in blue in armor discussing

with his fellow soldiers what could be battle but in fact it's his own fate and saint maurice

also appears here on the left hand side firstly as a man who's looking down on a scene as it unfolds

secondly as a man stripped naked with his hands clasped together in prayer and thirdly as a man

beheaded the way the painting is produced shows how much el greco's looked at venetian art there's a

very great of a series of venetian devices where heads are shown at different angles particularly in

this main group to bring the painting to life to give it a sense of dynamism but the color particularly

this icy blue and yellow is el greco's there's no precedence for this in art history but there's

another twist of this painting that gives it its real edge in between the main figures the main

christian roman generals are contemporary generals what el greco is doing here is making a very clever

concise contemporary point about the fight against heresy and linking the 16th century struggle with the

struggle of the early christian martyrs but in a way he was being too clever because in counter-reformation

spain anything that transcended christian orthodoxy was viewed with suspicion and philip ii had real

problems with this picture because time was conflated but mainly because martyrdom itself is marginalised

and in the main part of the painting it was seen to discuss or debate on the merits of martyrdom

rather than to celebrate it and for that reason philip ii rejected this as an altarpiece he still kept

it in his own collection but for the next two years there was a debate with el greco about money el greco

started to haggle and that was not a very clever thing to do given the power of the monarchy and the

importance of its patronage within the space of three years el greco had offended and excluded himself

from the two main sources of institutional patronage in spain toledo cathedral and the king his ambitions

of grandeur and becoming a court painter were over and he had to accept the life of a contract artist

at the age of 42 el greco had to turn to small churches and chapels to find work

here in toledo at the church of san tome el greco's own parish church he was commissioned to paint this

picture called the burial of count orgaz count orgaz was a 14th century nobleman who gave money to

this church and who at his funeral it was rumored to be the subject of a miracle the saints stephen and

augustine came down from heaven to bear his soul upwards and that's the picture that's the saga

that el greco brings to life here we see the heavenly multitudes christ enthroned in splendor there's

the virgin mary saint peter holding the keys saint john the baptist in the foreground with this billowing

cloud that's almost like some kind of birth canal there's an angel clutching a phantom this shadowy

figure that in fact is the soul of count orgaz downwards and in the bottom half of the picture

it's full of great detail the count himself is in the middle being clutched by saint augustine one of

the church's founding fathers and saint stephen the first martyr who was stoned to death orgaz is wearing

the armor though of a 16th century nobleman and all the dignitaries in the background are recognizable

from toledo including el greco himself who's just behind the head of saint stephen and to the left

of the dramatic scene is a small boy looking out at us inviting us to look into the scene

now this is george manuel this is el greco's eight-year-old son and if you look in his pocket

there's a handkerchief spilling over there's his signature but it also bears the date of the son's

birth and so the picture is as much a celebration of the sun as it is of a commemoration of this great

event but the sun is also pointing and this is important because not only is he visually drawing

our attention to what's happening but he's giving us a lesson he's saying there's something to be

learned from this painting what is there to be learned well that if you do good works if you give

money to the church if you live a good life then in the end your reward will be in heaven now this is a

standard christian message but in the late 16th century it has the real power of counter-reformation

propaganda because the protestants had said that in order to get to heaven it was based on faith alone

and that your salvation had nothing to do with the good works you did during your life or the money

that you gave to the church and el greco very cleverly amalgamates all these ideas into a picture

that becomes more powerful because of the way he's composed it the top half of the painting is ethereal

it's an ecstatic heavenly vision the bottom half of the painting is much more graphically real look at

the details particularly the robes of the priest with his back to us but also there's another twist

the two saints augustine and stephen are luring the body of count orgaz into his tomb in the church

here at san tomei underneath where i'm standing is the actual tomb of count orgaz so imagine yourself

as a 16th century visitor here you can recognize the figures they're slightly larger than life but of your

scale you're looking at a miracle but a miracle brought to life in painting and that's what el

greco is doing following the success of this painting el greco experienced an increase in the number of

commissions from tilladen parish churches his brilliant but increasingly individual style glorified and

dramatized the catholic faith his paintings rapidly became important tools for arousing and inspiring

devotion the lack of competition the raft of commissions from chapels and churches and increasingly for

portraits from the wealthy citizens of toledo meant that he'd carved a niche for himself and el greco was

able to develop his work without the criticism his individual style might have brought him in rome

to lay there obviously suited el greco around 1600 he paid homage to his adopted home in an uncommissioned

portrait of the city itself view of toledo is a rare example of an el greco landscape it's as much about

the workings of his imagination as it is a view of the city and he's rearranged some of toledo's main

landmarks but more significantly about 10 years later a landscape did appear as the backdrop to the only

surviving mythological work he ever painted here's toledo again a similar sort of day with this odd

light but what's happening in the foreground is the main purpose of this picture what we see is the saga

of laucaon he was a priest who defended the gods and as a consequence he was told that he had to

atone for his sins and make a sacrifice to poseidon the god of the sea at the same time the greeks send

their famous wooden horse as a gift to troy and laucaon says no don't accept it beware of greeks

bearing gifts he's then castigated again and whilst he's sacrificing a bull to poseidon god of the sea

two sea serpents rear up out of the ocean and get him and his two sons and that's exactly the moment

that el greco chooses to paint but there is a certain moral ambiguity because laucaon seems to have a

punishment far in excess of what he's done he may have been lascivious he may have violated the temple

but at the same time he told the truth and his warnings weren't heeded and the city was lost

but in the main this is a picture that strikes you because of the extraordinary way in which it's been

painted this is a great example of mannerist art mannerism is a style that's developing in europe at

the time where traditional subject matters from the bible or from mythology are taken by various artists

and painted in a unique or original style it's the artist claiming the subject for themselves

exactly what el greco does here and he paints with a furious loose expressive brush and it's this approach

this almost expressionistic approach that has such a huge impact when el greco is rediscovered as an artist

at the end of the 19th century it's this painting and the very late work that makes el greco the great

artist he's now considered to be today although he never stopped working el greco standard of living

fluctuated greatly some contemporary documents report him living like a prince while others show he was

unable to pay his debts which pursued him to the grave this his last work was created for his own tomb

the adoration of the shepherds depicts a darkened scene where mary joseph and the shepherds are irradiated

by an intense mystical light emanating from the tiny body of christ this painting is a final

affirmation of el greco's belief that the most powerful art is the result of the human imagination

as opposed to the slavish imitation of nature el greco died in 1614 and his reputation sank into obscurity

a quirky figure out on the margins of european art history but in the 19th century the mystical and

visionary nature of his painting struck a chord with artists who became known as the avant-garde who

proclaimed him as a forerunner of modernism a painter whose spectacular imagination helped to create one of

the more idiosyncratic styles in western art