El Greco; an account of his life and works

Front matter

THE SPANISH SERIES

THE SPANISH SERIES

Edited by ALBERT F. CALVERT

Contents

PAGE

I. Introduction — The Development of Painting in Spainduringthe Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries . . i

II. What we do not Know, and What we Know of El Greco’s Life, from his Birth to the Time of his Coming to Spain ...... 16

II

WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW, AND WHAT WE KNOW OF EL GRECO’S LIFE, FROM HIS BIRTH TO THE TIME OF HIS COMING TO SPAIN

We know almost nothing of El Greco’s life. Apart from his pictures we are among vagueness and mystery ; though the mystery has of late been cleared a little by the valuable and patient researches of Senor Cossio, to whose book on the Greco, just published in Spain, this present work on the painter, the first to be written in England, owes important biographical and documentary materials, which are here gratefully acknowledged. Yet the known facts even now are meagre enough, and if external happenings were all, the first great and most original painter of the Spanish school would remain an unexplained personality. Spain has not been careful of the reputation of her great ones — a neglect that would be surprising indeed if it were not part of the stately and simple indifference behind which the Spaniards

hide their real love of art. Even to-day the 16

Spaniard is constitutionally incapable of accepting the delusion that the great things in art may be made greater by accumulated writings. There is among the whole nation a simple acceptance of their treasures without the desire to explain them.

Our painter's very name is uncertain. To his contemporaries he was known as the Greco, the difficult Theotocopuli, barbarous to the Spaniards, being disregarded ; and up to the end of the eighteenth century no one writes of him except as Dominico Greco. Pacheco, Palomino, Giuseppe Martinez and other native writers, who mention his work, use this name. It is also the name found in the inventories of the palace, the registers of Toledo, and the indices of public writings ; and this name is given in the recently found item of his burial, the one authentic record that we have of his life. Sometimes, as in the laudatory sonnets of Gongora and Paravicino, he is called " the Greigo,” but this form of the name is unusual. And it is as Dominico Greco, shortened more often to El Greco, that the Toledan painter is now, and will be, remembered. What happened to Tintoretto, his master, has happened to him ; his real name has been forgotten, and a name given by chance becomes the one consecrated in the history of art.

B i8

Yet the Greco himself seems to have held his name in honour, for he has been prodigal in the signatures that he has left. We find his name, Domenicos Theotocopoulos, written in Greek characters, on the majority of his pictures, which must certainly be his family name. He uses also Domenico Theotocopuli, which he seems to have accepted as the Italian form of the Greek name. It is in this wise that he signed his contracts for work and payment letters in Toledo. Later the Italian Domenico was changed into the Spanish Dominico, and finally he came to sign his name thus. It is therefore as right to call the painter Domenico or Dominico Theotocopuli, as some prefer, as Domenicos Theotocopoulos, the name used by others.1

1 The first form of the name is used by Carl Justi, the second by D. Salvador Sampere, who has given much time in investigating the details of the painter’s life.

The earliest writer to use the name in Spain was Villegas, who, in his “ Extra vagantes,” speaks of the painter as “ Domenico Theotovcopuli of the Greek nation." Ponz, in the second edition of his “ Viage," uses “ Domenico Teotocopoli," but this was corrected by Cean Bermudez, in his “ Diccionario," to “ Dominico Theotocopoli." There has been in Spanish writers no different use of this name, nor has the Greco ever been confused with any other painter.

In Italy, however, great confusion has arisen, which has extended to Germany and Greece. Senor Cossio thinks that Greco’s name did not appear in the Italian histories of art until after the publication in Spain of Palomino’s book (1704).

The one date that we know certainly in El Greco’s life is the date of his deaths and for this

In the second edition (1733) of the “ Abecedario,” issued in Naples by Francisa Solimena, there is a short notice of the painter under the name of Domenico Greco. This notice is repeated in the Venetian edition of the book (1753), where further details are added, drawn from Palomino — and the name is changed to “ Domenico Teoscopoli.” In the “ Racolta di Lettere,” a letter about the Spanish painter, dated Rome, 26th October, 1765, and written to Sefior Ponfredi Francesco Preziado, director of the Spanish Academy in Rome, the painter is Domenico Greco, and no mention is made of his surname. Afterwards Lanzi, in his “ Storia Pittorica della Italia,” attributed to Greco the name of Domenico delle Greche, confusing him with a contemporary painter of that name, who was also a Greek, who worked in Venice in the studio of Titian ; he also perpetuated the use of the defective name “ Teoscopolis.” And these mistakes, though contradicted by the Abbe Zanni, who points out the difference in the age of the two painters, in his “ Enciclopedia,” was repeated by many of the Italian writers. It reappears in Ticozzi’s dictionary, and Bekelas makes the same error and calls him “ Theoscopolis,” saying that he wrote his name thus with his own hand ; which was carried to Greece, where El Greco was again confused with the older delle Greche. The result of this was that in Germany Nagler, in his “Lexicon,” accepts the two forms of Greco’s name, while Engarth uses the one form, “ Teoscopoli,” in his catalogue. The same mistake is made in the catalogue of the Museum of Vienna, and, what is of more importance, the false form of the name has been written in Latin characters, above the first inscription, which it effaces, on the bottom left-hand corner of the canvas in Greco’s “ Portrait of a Young Man.” Even England has not escaped the error, and Stirling-Maxwell, led astray by this confusion, suggests that Greco was the son of delle Greche.

For an amplification of this important and interesting question of Greco's name the reader is referred to Sen or reason we must start his biography at the wrong end. On the 7th day of April, 1614, 1 Dominico Greco died in Toledo, two years before Cervantes, with whom his life was exactly contemporaneous. The item of the painter’s burial, which gives this date, was discovered and published in 1876 by the Keeper of the Records of Toledo, Senor Foradada. It is contained in the folio (332. 1) of the Book of Funerals for the Parish of Santo Tome, dated from the year 1601 to 1614. The notice is brief ; it runs as follows : " 1 7. En siete del

Abril del 1614 falesco Domeniko Greco. No hizo testamento ; recibo los sacramentos, en teroso en Santo Domingo el Antiquo ; dio belas. On yth April , 1614, died Domenico Greco. He

left no will. He received the sacraments, ivas buried in Santo Domingo el Antiguo ; and gave candles .”

Much is told us in this concise notice. The Greco died a good Christian, and he paid for

Cossio’s book (chap. i. pp. 17-29). It is from this source that the facts given here have been taken.

1 The date has been given erroneously by nearly all, even among the Spanish writers. Carl Justi, as a rule so exact, gives the wrong date in an account of Greco in his volume on “ Velazquez,” and in his chapter on Spanish Art in “ Baedeker.” It is given correctly in “ A Record of Spanish Painting,” by C. Gasquoine Hartley, and in “ Toledo,” by Hannah Lynch.

candles to illuminate his tomb.1 He left no testament, so the hope is closed of finding such document, which would have cleared up the uncertaint}^ about his family and his worldly condition. Further it contradicts two of the mistakes made by Palomino 2 in his notice of the painter, in “El Museo Pictorico,” where he says Greco died about 1625, fixing on that date because in that year the painter’s son, Jorge Manuel, was made architect of the cathedral of Toledo, and judging mistakenly that he succeeded his father ; and further that he was buried in San Bartolome, adding fanciful details, which

1 The position of Greco’s tomb in Santo Domingo is not known. In the church there are three sepulchral flags. Two are known to be those of the founders of the church, Dofla Maria de Silva, and of a cavalier of the eighteenth century, a physician of Charles III. The third tomb, which is in the axis of the church, has not yet been identified. It is made of slate, and bears an inscription of the seventeenth century, which is almost obliterated and illegible. (See Senor Cossio, PP- 3. 4)-

2 This is Palomino’s statement : “ Our Dominico died in Toledo about the year 1625, when he was seventy-seven years of age, although others state that he was older. He was buried in the parish church of San Bartolome, and over the sepulchre was placed, I do not know from what motive, a grating in place of a flagstone, so that no other person could be buried in the same place. This is not in preservation to-day because, the church having been destroyed, it was removed during the rebuilding (“ El Museo Pictorico,” pp. 428-429).

he either invented, or which must have been circulated in Toledo.

It is not possible to fix with certainty the year in which El Greco was born, and this also makes it impossible to establish his age. Palomino gives that age as seventy-seven ; and reckoning from the false date of death, 1625, that gives 1548 as the year of birth, which date has been accepted hitherto by the painter's biographers. But the real date of death is 1614, which would change the age to sixty-six years, and carry the birth date back to 1537. This is unlikely, for Julio Clovio, writing of Domenico Greco in 1570, speaks of him as a young man, which he would hardly have done if he was then thirty-three years of age. The question is, What guided Palomino in stating this age of seventy-seven ? Don Salvador Sampere, who investigated the whole question in his article on Greco published in Spain in 1900, has sought to explain this point by suggesting that Palomino, taking the date either from an old lost writing or more probably from verbal information, mistook the seventy-seven years for sixty-seven, according to which Greco, dying in 1614, would have been born in 1547, and would thus be twenty-three years old at the time he presented himself to Julio

Clovio. However, it seems more probable that Palomino, whose inaccuracy with regard to birth dates has been proved again and again, made his statement without authority ; for he admits his uncertainty, and adds, after he gives the age, “ although others say that he was older,” which he would not have done if he had known really the date of Greco’s birth. What, then, have we to guide us ? There is the statement of Clovio, which fixes the fact that in 1570 Greco, on his arrival in Rome, was a young man. And this is further proved, if the portrait of the youth who appears in the picture of “ The Purification of the Temple,” in the possession of Lord Yarborough, in London, or the one who figures in the Parma picture of “ The Curing of the Blind Man,” can be accepted as a portrait of Greco. In these pictures we see two youths, each of whom might be the painter, and both are about twenty years old. We have one other statement to help us. Giuseppe Martinez, in his “ Lectures on Painting,” which were written only fifty years after the death of Greco, although not printed until 1866, says that the painter “arrived at a ripe age” ( ellegS d crecida eddd), which probably started the idea that Greco died old. These are the few facts. No register of baptism has been found, and there seems little hope that such a document will be discovered. No mention of the painter’s name occurs either in the parochial books of the numerous Greek colonies, who at that time were living in Venice, nor in the few old Cretan archives, which were saved and carried to Venice at the time of the Turkish Conquest. All that can be said, then, is that Dominico Greco was born, probably, sometime between 1545 and 1550 ; and therefore his age in 1614, the year in which we know he died, would be somewhere between sixty-five and seventy years.

We come to what we know of El Greco’s life.

One of the few certain facts is that he was a native of Crete, as we know by his signature, always in Greek, on several pictures. Aopjvix05 0€otoxo7toi;A.os XPV1* — that is, Dominichos

Theotocopulos, Cretan fecit. It is proof of the carelessness of the painter’s biographers that this important evidence was overlooked until Carl Justi, in 1888, drew attention to this signature on the San Maurice of the Escorial. The same discovery was made independently at about the same time by the Greek writer, Demetrius Bikelas. Greco seems to have found special pleasure in remembering Crete. In his picture of “ St Paul the Apostle,” in the sacristy of Toledo cathedral, and also in all the known replicas of the picture, the epistle which the saint holds in his hands bears the inscription in Greek *

(Titus ordained the first bishop of the Cretans).

Another proof that Dominico Greco came from Crete is given in the letter of Julio Clovio, already quoted from, in which he describes Greco as “ a youth from Candia ” (givvane candiota ). And further proof, if this is needed, has now been added by Senor Cossio, who has brought to notice the definite assertion of Greco’s contemporary and friend, the famous Fr. Hortensio Felix Paravicino.1 In the sonnet which the orator dedicated to Greco’s tomb, he says :

“ Creta le dio y los pinceles Toledo ”2

(Crete gave him life and Toledo his pencil).

1 Paravicino dedicated four sonnets to El Greco. Two of these are given by Palomino, and one of them is the sonnet written for the tomb of Queen Margarita. The other sonnets seem not to have been noticed until Senor Cossio pointed out the importance of one of them in his valuable book.

2 Palomino, as we have said, quotes, or rather rais-quotes, this sonnet. The poet wrote :

The same statement is repeated in another sonnet, dedicated by Paravicino to the tomb of Queen Margarita, which was erected by Greco. In this he writes, “ the tomb was made by the strong hand of Crete/'

But not only do we know that Greco was a Cretan, but the town of his birth is established. Again we owe the discovery to Sefior Cossio. He has — by a happy chance, he tells us ; we might add, by most patient care and research — found a document,1 in which there is a declaration made by El Greco in 1582 before the tribunal of the Inquisition, when called to act as an interpreter in the case of a Cretan accused of being a Moresco. He is here described as “ Dominiko Theotokopuli, native of Candia, painter, resident in Toledo.” The document does not contain the signature of Greco.

Palomino changed the last line into

“ mano en aquesia caxa progrina,” missing the very point of interest. In the “ Obras poeticas de Paravicino ” the word Creta is written with a small “ c ” and is placed very close to the de : thus, decreta. Sefior Cossio thinks that this accounts for the mistake, causing the copyist to seek a new meaning for the words.

1 This document has now been published by Don J ose Marti y Monso in the Boletln de la soc. cast de Exc.

The residence of our painter in Crete, which by these facts is now established, is of the utmost importance. This early environment counts for much. It is certain that the basis of Greco’s art was formed by Byzantine - Cretan local traditions. But this consideration carries us beyond the scope of the present chapter.

No clue has been discovered that gives us any knowledge of Dominico Greco’s parents ; nor have we any information as to the manner of his life until the close of the year 1570. Then we have Julio Clovio’s letter, the one irrefutable proof of the stay in Venice. The facts that we learn are important. The celebrated miniature painter commends his young compatriot, who, he states, is coming to Rome, to the patronage of the Cardinal Nepote Farnese. He speaks of his skill in painting, and says that he has learnt his art as the pupil of Titian.

But the exact contents are as follows :

“ Al Card, Farnese- Viterbo, “A* di 16 di Nouembre, 1570.

“ Di V. S. Illma. et Revma, humflissimo servitore, Julio Clovio.”

“ To Card. Farnese-Viterbo,

“ 16 th November 1570.

“ There has arrived in Rome a young man from Candia , a disciple of Titian , who in my opinion is a painter of rare talent ; among other things he has painted a portrait of himself , which causes wonderment to all the painters in Rome. I should like him to be under the patronage of your Illustrious and Reverend Lordship , without any other contribution towards his living than a room in the Farnese Palace for some little time , until he can find other accommodation. I therefore beg and pray you to have the kindness to write to Count Lodovico, your Majordomo, to provide him with some room near the top in the said Palace ; your

Illustrious Lordship will be doing a virtuous deed worthy of you , and I shall feel very grateful.

“ I reverently kiss your hands and remain of your Illustrious and Reverend Lordship ,

(< The most humble servant,

“ Julio Clovio.”

From this letter, then, we know that in 1570 Greco, still young, was the pupil of Titian, and had already gained skill in his art ; we may therefore adopt the suggestion of Carl Justi and place the years of his apprenticeship in the studio of the master during the decade 1560-1570. We shall speak later of these years of youth in Venice, so important to Greco that in his early manner he is a pure Venetian, though, as we should expect, even from the time of his first picture his special personality was determined. Perhaps this is why he seems to have learnt nothing from Titian except the technique of his art. For it was not from the great Renaissance master that the young Greco drew his inspiration, but from the passionate, religious Tintoretto, whose art, we know, had so many points of contact with his own ; he was influenced also by the work of the Bassani, as his first portraits testify. But again we are anticipating. Here we have no further facts to note.

We are uncertain as to the reason, or reasons, which brought the young painter to Rome ; though it may well have been to seek a market for his pictures in the Eternal City, as well as the desire for further teaching. Of the pictures that belong to this Venetian-Roman period we shall speak in the next chapter. Whether they were painted before or after 1570, and belong to the years in Venice or to the years in Rome, it is impossible to decide with certainty, though it seems likely that any Venetian pictures are lost, and that those few pictures of the painter’s youth that we know belong to the Roman period, and perhaps were executed for the Cardinal Nepote, who would seem to have lodged Greco in his palace, where there is evidence to think that his pictures were preserved among the collection of the Famesio house. We can well imagine that the young Greco, with his vivid realisation of life, would be wrought upon by the special life of Rome. It would be easy to enlarge on the probable influence of the Italian masters upon the Greco-Venetian student, and especially on the certain and powerful influence of Michael Angelo, where again he would meet an art in sympathy with his character. But in forming a conclusion it is likely we should fall into error.

Thus we must pass on for seven years to the next date that we know.

Sometime before 1577, probably in 1576 or 1575, Dominico Greco came to Spain. In that year we find him at work in Toledo, engaged in decorating the then new church of Santo Domingo el Antigua, as we know from the date 1577 after his signature upon the central picture of “ The Ascension ” in the retablo of the said church, as well as from the documents relating to the works of the church, according to which Dominico Theotocopuli painted the eight pictures for the principal and collateral altars, and was paid 1000 ducats for the work.1 The same silence prevails respecting the reasons that brought Greco to Spain. Julio Clovio may have had something to do with his appointment as a painter worthy of undertaking the decoration of the Toledan church ; the miniaturist had himself worked for the King of Spain, and he would probably know the advantages to be gained by a young painter of talent settling in the imperial city of Toledo. Perhaps he was personally acquainted with Don Diego de Castilla, Dean of Toledo, who was one of the founders of the church of Santo Domingo. It was the period when Italian painters were flocking to

1 Cean Bermudez, “ Diccionario," t. v. p. 7.

Spain. The building of the Escorial which, about 1565, was urged forward by the Spanish sovereign with feverish activity, formed the great centre of artistic industry.

Bergamasco, Patrico Caxesi, and Romulo Cincinnati had been called already to Spain ; later came the Venetian Frederico Zuccaro, his pupil Bartolommeo Carducci and the esteemed Tibaldi, and although the great masters themselves did not come — Veronese refused the invitation of Philip II. — their works were sent to Spain, notably those of Titian, who enjoyed the favour of the Spanish monarchs until his death in 1576. This Greco would know, and he may well have been urged to seek his fortune in a country that called for, and rewarded genius. But be the reason what it may, it was a fortunate choice that brought the Greco- Venetian painter to Toledo.

The imperial city, though not the political capital, Philip II. having, in 1561, fixed the Court at Madrid, in order to be nearer to his beloved Escorial, was the very centre of Spain’s life. It was then, as it is now, the city that gives the most finished and characteristic expression of the genuine Spanish civilisation. The national character, intense and brilliant, proud and aloof, and the nation’s history here seem to appear before you.

In no other city are there the same number of architectural monuments, which make it indeed the museum in which the original lines of the native art can best be studied. The student of Spain must always visit Toledo. It is the chief home of the two great elements of Spanish culture, the Christian and the Arab, the interpenetration of which elements is the most typical note Spain offers in the sphere of art. Christian and Moor overlap in many buildings, while in others the individuality of each emerges isolated and independent. In the cathedral we see nothing of the Moor ; and in the characteristic parts of the wonderful mosque of Bel-el-Mardon, now called el Cristo de la Luz, and in the less known, but not less interesting, mosque in the Calle de las Tornarias — a building which was never converted to Christian uses and retains its original physiognomy almost unimpaired — we can with difficulty trace the Christian. Then the Sinagoga del Transito, for instance, shows the Moorish tradition persisting. Again Toledo had accumulated an enormous quantity of jewels of the early and middle centuries, and of the Renaissance, treasures of unimaginable splendours. Not less wonderful are her church vestments. The early Gothic embroideries are exquisite, c

These inspirations of culture must not be forgotten.

And the city itself — ah, it is difficult in words to describe Toledo ! A great town, set on its rough and elevated rock of granite in the midst of the blue Sierra, closely ringed by the deep brown water of the Tajo, it has been content to wait unchanged through the slow centuries. Its steeplyrising streets, with their many buildings of so many different civilizations that here remain together ; churches, convents, mosques, Gothic houses, walls and ornaments, steep Moorish passages — everywhere the Moorish design is evident — and a great Christian cathedral. Toledo is a real living picture, where each building is a voice that speaks the history of Spain.

Toledo awaited a painter. Already the city had great buildings ; there was much fine sculpture and beautiful paintings on glass ; the cathedral and churches were furnished with the most perfect industrial arts that had been produced in Spain. The time had not yet been ripe for the painting of pictures. We have seen that in Spain the development of painting had been slow ; that what she had achieved under Flemish influence, by Luis de Dalmau, Fernandez and others had been in large measure lost. We have noted the fatal neo-Italianism of such painters as Luis de Vargas, Cespedes, and Juanes. But we have seen also that in the sixteenth century the new spirit in art was awakening. Ribalta in Valencia, Navarrete in Madrid, Morales in Estremadura, and Roelas in Seville had turned to the school of southern Italy and to Venice, the roads whereby Spanish art was to attain salvation. In Toledo the obscure painters of the cathedral were Juan de Borgona, Carbajal, and Luis de Velasco, and the much more interesting Bias del Prado, in whose altar pictures the special Spanish manner speaks, if haltingly. Toledo now sought a painter of genius and technical mastery, who would be able to translate her history and identify himself with her spirit, catch her wonderful cold colours, and whose works would rival her ancient treasures in their beauty. El Greco was called to this role of giving the first expression in painting to the Toledan spirit, which is also the spirit of Spain.

Ill

THE VENETIAN-ROMAN PERIOD. EARLY PICTURES

It has been said that in his early pictures, painted in this first period of youth, Greco was a pure Venetian, showing little of the special qualities that distinguish his art. This is a mistake. Like all the other capable painters of that time, he had studied with Titian, yet he never appears as a true Renaissance master. Perhaps his individuality is best shown by the way he resisted this influence, to which all Titian’s pupils, even Tintoretto, in his youth, succumbed. Thus the Greco’s pictures have been attributed to the Bassani, to Tintoretto, to his friend Clovio, to Veronese even, but never to Titian.

The cycle of his works begins with religious pictures — works that have already, though undeveloped, the character he maintained throughout his life. We see especially the continuing repetition of varying lights, the delight in movement, and audacity in the use of colours ; pledges of the originality that with, or without success, Greco always sought after ; so that it is an astonishment that these Grecos can have been attributed to any other master — a mistake explained only by the fact that in Italy the memory of his work has been lost, even his existence forgotten. It is significant that, like Lotto, St Jerome is the first saint that Greco chooses to paint. The Byzantine- Cretan youth gives no sign of the joyful Renaissance spirit. In two pictures of this period — genre peasant-studies of splendid individuality when we remember the painter’s age at the time they were executed — Greco strikes chords which we find echoed in no other Venetian work. These pictures give a curiously modem impression.

To this period of Dominico Greco’s youth Carl Justi assigns six pictures, all of which have been rescued from false attributions, and within the last half-century restored to Greco : two renderings of " Christ healing the Blind Man,” the earlier in the Royal Gallery of Dresden and the later picture in the Parma Gallery ; the portrait of Julio Clovio in the National Gallery of Naples, and a splendid genre picture of “ A Boy Lighting a Coal,” also in the same gallery ; two important compositions on the subject used so often by Greco, “ The Purification of the Temple,” both in England, one belonging to the Countess of Yarborough, the other in the Cook Collection at Richmond. Senor Cossio, in his important work, mentions three further pictures in the same style and of the same period which, until now, like the other six pictures, have passed as originals of other masters ; one, “ The Adoration of the Shepherds,” in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna, has been called a Bassano ; the second, “ The Purification of the Temple,” the same subject as the London pictures, belongs to Senor de Beruete, Madrid. It is more advanced in style, and shows the transition from the Italian to the Spanish manner. The remaining picture, entitled " Escena de Genero ” (Raising a Flame), is a genre study, of which there are several replicas. There was also painted in Italy the picture of St Jerome, now in the National Gallery, London ; and, the more important, " Portrait of an Unknown Man ” in the Vienna Imperial Gallery. In addition to these eleven pictures there are repetitions of the same themes, and a few old copies of Italian subjects ; and although some of these canvases may have been executed in Spain, they belong to the Italian period in conception and workmanship. Here the list of known pictures painted by Greco before he went to Spain, in 1575 or 1576, closes. It is possible that other canvases will be discovered that, like these pictures, have been attributed to Italian painters ; we do not know of them yet.