EL GRECO'S PAINTINGS El Greco's Paintings

Comparing and contrasting El Greco's paintings, "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz" and "The Agony in the Garden".

Introduction of El Greco

El Greco (the Greek) was born on October 1, 1541 in Heraklion, Crete. Possibly he studied painting in his village. El Greco was a big fan of classic literature of his age and very young. His production of this period is linked to Byzantine traditions with Italianate influences. About the year 1566, travels to Venice, where he remained until 1570. There was influenced by Titian and Tintoretto. The flourishing art of El Greco arrived in Spain, where he went in 1577 received no recognition at court in Madrid, he settled in Toledo, where he soon received an order for construction of the main altar in the convent of Santo Domingo el Antiguo. In 1586, he painted one of his masterpieces (Anaya & José, 1998).

El Greco's Painting "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz"

Description

This large table is divided into two zones; one hand on the top there is a heavenly area where they appear Christ, the Virgin, angels, saints and other deceased characters. At the bottom, the earth, it is surrounded by characters a funeral, a church and other civilians.

Origin of the Table

The origin of the box has to be placed in order that Andres Nuñez de Madrid (parish priest of Santo Tomé) performed in 1586 El Greco to paint a canvas that was going to be located in a side chapel of the said parish church. That picture would have to represent the miracle that occurred in 1323 when he left that church to bury Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo, Lord of Orgaz: At that point down from the sky St. Augustine and St. Stephen and bury themselves with their own hands. So the picture has to represent this scene in order to inform the visitor the extraordinary event that occurred there, while you remember that certain virtues such as charity or prayer to the saints are compelling reasons to eternal life, why another part of the occurrence of the miracle (Pablo, 2002).

The reasons for this request are made in 1586 should be pursued litigation that years ago the pastor stood with neighbors Nuñez de Orgaz by refusing them to continue to benefit the church of Santo Tomé, as we had written his master before dying, this lawsuit is won by Nuñez, who from that time you decide to build a chapel over the tomb, an epitaph to the humanist order Alvar Gomez de Castro to remember a more direct way to the faithful the need for charity to achieve salvation, and order the same way a canvas rememorare the miraculous and reading to be extracted from it (Pablo, 2002). El Greco has thus represented a painting under the contract and commissioning Nuñez, most direct source of the work, but also the painter has other sources such as the work of Pedro de Alcocer or Roman Hieronyma from which to extract elements or ...