Opening of the Fifth Seal
The Opening of the Fifth Seal | |
---|---|
Artist | El Greco |
Year | 1608–1614 |
Medium | oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 224.8 cm × 199.4 cm (88.5 in × 78.5 in) |
Location | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City |
The Opening of the Fifth Seal (or The Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse or The Vision of Saint John) was painted in the last years of El Greco's life for a side-altar of the church of Saint John the Baptist outside the walls of Toledo. Before 1908, El Greco's painting had been referred to as Profane Love. The scholar Manuel B. Cossio had doubts about the title and suggested the Opening of the Fifth Seal.[1] The Metropolitan Museum, where the painting is kept, comments: "the picture is unfinished and much damaged and abraded."[2]
Subject of the painting
The painting's subject is taken from the Book of Revelation 6:9–11, where the souls of martyrs cry out to God for justice upon their persecutors on Earth. The ecstatic figure of St. John dominates the canvas, while behind him naked souls writhe in a chaotic storm of emotion as they receive white robes of salvation.
The upper portion of the painting was destroyed in 1880. It is believed that the lost portion may have depicted the sacrificial lamb opening the Fifth Seal.[2] The lost upper painting may have also resembled another piece by El Greco, Concert of Angels. Many believe that the surviving portion depicts profane love, while the missing upper portion depicts divine love.[3]
Ownership
Upon El Greco's death in 1614, the work passed to his son, Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli.[2] During the 19th century, it was owned by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain. Dissatisfied with the condition of the piece, he attempted to have it restored in 1880. The attempted restoration removed at least 175 centimetres (69 inches) from the top of the canvas, leaving John the Evangelist emphatically pointing nowhere.
After Cánovas' death in 1897, the painting was sold for 1,000 pesetas (US$200) to Ignacio Zuloaga, a painter who was instrumental in reviving European interest in El Greco. The painting may be seen in the background of his work Mis amigos, representing several notable members of the Generation of '98. Zuloaga is known to have shown the painting to Pablo Picasso and Rainer Maria Rilke. He declared it as possessing a "visionary power" that made it a "precursor of modernism".[4] In 1956, the Zuloaga Museum sold this artwork to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it is on exhibit today.
Comparison with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
It has been suggested that the Opening of the Fifth Seal served as an inspiration for the early Cubist works of Pablo Picasso, especially Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which mirrors the expressionistic angularity of the painting. When Picasso was working on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, he visited his friend Zuloaga in his studio in Paris and studied El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal.[5] The relation between Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and the Opening of the Fifth Seal was pinpointed in the early 1980s, when the stylistic similarities and the relationship between the motifs of both works were analysed.[6] Art historian Ron Johnson was the first to focus on the relationship between the two paintings. According to John Richardson, a British art historian, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon "turns out to have a few more answers to give once we realize that the painting owes at least as much to El Greco as Cézanne".[7]
Efi Foundoulaki insists on the "activity of the triangle Picasso-Cézanne-El Greco, which is established in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". Foundoulaki analyzes the Opening of the Fifth Seal and states that the clothed figure in the left part of the painting and the naked figures to the right showed the contradiction between profane and divine love. According to Rolf Laesse, this may have been the original inspiration of Picasso who in a preliminary drawing of the Demoiselles depicted a medical student holding a skull or a book and entering a room where there is a sailor among nude women.[8] Richardson, however, conjectures that Picasso knew the interpretation by Cossio concerning the Opening of the Fifth Seal and based his theory extensively on this conjecture.[9]
Richardson and Foundoulaki emphasize on the morphological parallels between the Opening of the Fifth Seal and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and explore the Picasso–Cézanne–El Greco relationship.[10] Foundoulaki asserts that there is a similarity of shape and that Picasso ingeniously repeated the game with the |V and the inverted triangles of El Greco, something he had already begun in The Villagers.[11] According to Foundoulaki, "the dialogue Picasso inaugurated with El Greco in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, by means of Cézanne, is carried on in Cubism".[11] Richardson sees the Apocalypse in El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal as the catalyst which showed Picasso how to harness the spiritual energy of a great religious artist to his own demonic ends. According to Richardson, Picasso followed this apocalyptic vision his whole life.[10]
See also
References
- ^ In his catalogue the painting Number 327 is called De l'Apocalypsis? (fragmento)
- ^ a b c "The Vision of Saint John". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
- ^ E. Foundoulaki, From El Greco to Cézanne, 116
- ^ Michael Scholz-Hänsel. El Greco: Domenikos Theotokopoulos, 1541–1614. Taschen, 2004. ISBN 978-3-8228-3171-7. Page 90.
- ^ C. B. Horsley, The Shock of the Old
- ^ R. Johnson, Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, 102–113
- ^ J. Richardson, Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse, 40–47
- ^ R. Laesse, A Source in El Greco for Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon", 133–134
- ^ J. Richardson, Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse, 45
- ^ a b J. Richardson, Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse, 46
- ^ a b E. Foundoulaki, From El Greco to Cézanne, 102
- v
- t
- e
- Adoration of the Magi (c. 1565–1567)
- Dormition of the Virgin (1565–1566)
- Healing of the Man Born Blind
- Dresden, 1567
- Parma, c. 1573
- Modena Triptych (1567–1569)
- Baptism of Christ (1567–1569)
- Last Supper (1568)
- Flight into Egypt (1570)
- Annunciation
- Prado, 1570
- Madrid, 1575–1576
- Illescas, 1600–1605
- Purification of the Temple
- Washington, 1570
- Minneapolis, 1570
- New York, 1595–1600
- London, 1600
- Madrid, 1609
- The Fable (1570–1575)
- Entombment of Christ (1570–1576)
- El Soplón (1571–1572)
- Pietà (1571–1576)
- Penitent Magdalene (1576–1578)
- Saint Sebastian (1576–1579)
- Santo Domingo el Antiguo Altarpiece (1577)
- Saint Lawrence's Vision of the Madonna and Child (1577)
- Adoration of the Holy Name of Jesus (1577–1579)
- Assumption of the Virgin (1577–1579)
- Disrobing of Christ (El Expolio) (1577–1579)
- Holy Trinity (c. 1577–1579)
- Saint Anthony of Padua (1580)
- Christ Carrying the Cross
- New York, c. 1580
- Barcelona, 1590–1595
- Madrid, 1597–1600
- The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice (1580–1582)
- The Tears of Saint Peter
- Barnard Castle, 1580–1589
- Mexico City, 1587–1596
- Oslo, c. 1590
- The Immaculate Conception with Saint John the Evangelist (c. 1585)
- The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586)
- Holy Family (1586–1588)
- Holy Face of Jesus (1586–1595)
- Saint Peter and Saint Paul
- Barcelona, 1587–1592
- Saint Petersburg, c. 1587–1592
- Agony in the Garden
- London, 1590
- Andújar, 1597–1607
- Christ on the Cross Adored by Two Donors (c. 1590)
- The Penitent Saint Peter (c. 1590–1595)
- Saint Louis (1592–1595)
- Virgin Mary (Mater Dolorosa) (c. 1594–1604)
- Holy Family (c. 1595)
- Christ Taking Leave of his Mother (1595)
- Saint Andrew and Saint Francis (1595–1598)
- Adoration of the Shepherds
- Bucharest, 1596
- Madrid, 1612–1614
- Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece (1596–1599)
- View of Toledo (1596–1600)
- Virgin Mary (1597)
- Saint Martin and the Beggar (1597–1599)
- The Virgin of Charity (1597–1603)
- Allegory of the Camaldolese Order (c. 1597)
- Saint John the Baptist (1597–1607)
- Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Francis (c. 1600)
- Saint Bernardino of Siena (1603)
- Nativity (1603–1605)
- Coronation of the Virgin (1603–1605)
- Marriage of the Virgin (1603–1607)
- Saint John the Evangelist (c. 1605)
- The Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Hyacinth (c. 1605–1610)
- The Immaculate Conception (1607–1613)
- Saint Peter (1608)
- View and Plan of Toledo (1608)
- Concert of Angels (1608)
- The Saviour (1608–1614)
- Saint Thomas the Apostle (1608–1614)
- Opening of the Fifth Seal (1608–1614)
- Saint Jerome (1609)
- Saint Ildefonsus (1609)
- Saint Francis and Brother Leo (1609)
- Saint James the Great (1610)
- Saint Luke (1610–1614)
- Laocoön (1610–1614)
- Saint Paul (1610–1614)
- Saint Sebastian (1610–1614)
- Julián Romero and Saint Julian (1612–1614)
- Portrait of Giulio Clovio (c. 1571)
- Portrait of Vincenzo Anastagi (1571–1576)
- The Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest (c. 1580)
- Portrait of a Doctor (1582–1585)
- Portrait of a Gentleman (c. 1586)
- Portrait of Rodrigo Vázquez de Arce (c. 1587–1597; lost, known from a copy)
- Portrait of an Elderly Man (1587–1600)
- Portrait of Antonio de Covarrubias (1595–1600)
- Self-Portrait (1595–1600)
- Portrait of Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli (c. 1597–1603)
- Portrait of a Young Nobleman (1600–1605)
- Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara (c. 1600)
- Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman (1603–1607)
- Portrait of Fray Hortensio Félix Paravacino (1609)
- Portrait of Juan Pardo de Tavera (1609)
- Portrait of Jerónimo de Cevallos (1609–1613)
- Portrait of Francisco de Pisa (1610–1614)
- Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli (son)
- Lady in Ermine (1947 film)
- El Greco (1966 film)
- El Greco (1998 album)
- El Greco (2007 film)
- El Greco fallacy