Healing the Blind (El Greco)
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| Healing the blind man |
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| El Greco , soon after 1570 |
| Poplar wood |
| 65.5 × 84 cm |
| Old Masters Picture Gallery |
The painting Healing of the Blind by El Greco is in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden and is the only certainly personal work by the master in a German museum.
Image description
“ The healing of the blind. The blind man kneels in front of Christ, who heals him by placing his right hand on his eye. On the left a group of five spectators. On the right the apostles; in front of it a dog in a pool of water. Palace buildings on the left, a mountain landscape on the right. Ev. Marc. VIII, 22-23. "
This entry in the gallery catalog from 1887 refers to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verses 22-23 , an assignment that needs to be questioned. Wilhelm Schäfer already had doubts about the clear attribution to a Bible passage in his comprehensive book about the Royal Painting Gallery from 1861:
“What wonderful healing of a blind man, whether that at Jericho or that at Bethsaida , the artist had in mind in his composition cannot be precisely determined. The disciples and the people are some distance away, hence those in front of Bethsaida. "
Biblical sources
No one is told about the miraculous healings of Jesus as often and in many variations as the healing of the blind.
The gospel according to Matthew
Healing of two blind men (Chapter 9, verses 27 to 31)
“As Jesus was walking on, two blind men followed him and shouted: Have mercy on us, Son of David! After he went into the house, the blind came to him. He said to them: Do you think I can help you? They replied, Yes, Lord. Then he touched their eyes and said: As you believed, so it should be. Then her eyes were opened. But Jesus commanded them: Be careful! Nobody is allowed to know. But they went away and told the whole area about him. "
Healing of two blind men (Chapter 20, verses 29 to 34)
“When they left Jericho, great numbers of people followed him. But two blind people were sitting by the road, and when they heard that Jesus was passing they shouted: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us! But the people got angry and told them to be silent. But they shouted louder: Lord, son of David, have mercy on us! Jesus stopped, called them over and said: What should I do for you? They replied, Lord, we want our eyes to be opened. Jesus took pity on them and touched their eyes. In the same instant they could see again and they followed him. "
The temple cleansing (Chapter 21, verse 14)
"In the temple the lame and the blind came to him and he healed them."
The Gospel according to Mark
Healing a blind man (Chapter 8, verses 22-26)
“They came to Betsaida. They brought a blind man to Jesus and asked him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand, led him outside the village, smeared his eyes with saliva, laid his hands on him and asked him: Do you see something? The man looked up and said: I see people; 'Cause I see something that looks like trees and goes around Then he put his hands on his eyes again; now the man saw clearly. He was healed and could see everything very clearly. Jesus sent him home and said: But don't go into the village! "
Healing of blind Bartimaeus (chapter 10, verses 46 to 52)
“They came to Jericho. When he left Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar, Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting on the street. As soon as he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he shouted: Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me! Many became angry and ordered him to be silent. But he shouted even louder: Son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus stopped and said: Call him! They called the blind man and said to him: Have courage, get up, he is calling you. So he threw away his cloak, jumped up and ran towards Jesus. And Jesus asked him: What should I do to you? The blind man replied: Rabbuni, I want to be able to see again. Jesus said to him: Go! Your faith has helped you. In the same moment he could see again and he followed Jesus on his way. "
The gospel according to Luke
Healing a blind man (Chapter 18, verses 35 to 43)
“When Jesus came near Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road and begging. He heard a lot of people passing by and asked: What does this mean? He was told: Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. Then he cried: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me! The people who went ahead got angry and told him to be silent. But he shouted even louder: Son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus stopped and let him come to him. When the man stood in front of him, Jesus asked him: What should I do for you? He replied: Lord, I want to be able to see again. Then Jesus said to him, You shall see again. Your faith has helped you. In the same instant he could see again. So he praised God and followed Jesus. And all the people who saw it praised God. "
The gospel according to John
Healing a Man Born Blind (Chapter 9, Verses 1 to 7)
“On the way, Jesus saw a man who was blind from birth. Then his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? He himself? Or did his parents sin so that he was born blind? Jesus answered: Neither he nor his parents sinned, but the work of God should be revealed in him. While it is day we must do the works of him who sent me; the night comes when no one can do anything anymore. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he said this, he spat on the ground; Then he made a dough with the saliva, put it on the blind man's eyes and said to him: Go and wash yourself in the Schiloach pond! Schiloach means translated: The Messenger. The man went away and washed. And when he came back he could see. "
The representation assigned by Woermann to the healing of the blind at Bethsaida can therefore not be understood, the picture is certainly not an illustration of a single Bible verse. It can therefore be assumed that the artist has created a composition here that takes up and unites elements of the various traditions.
interpretation
Problems
The possible assignment to a Bible passage is not the only unsolved mystery in this picture. So neither the exact production period is known, nor the client or El Greco's motivation for taking up this motif, and there is currently no consensus on many details of the iconography. The existence of two other versions, in the Galleria Nazionale in Parma and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York, does little to shed light on the open questions. So far it seems certain that the Dresden painting is the oldest of these three versions.
The painterly execution also raises questions. B .:
- the shadows of the people have different directions
- the heads of the apostles appear ancient and repeat themselves many times
- the color paste is structured in the architectures with the brush style or even the thumb
- the dog with sack and bottle is painted over the already finished slab floor
Possible solutions
The personality
Considerations on contemporary conditions in art and religion can serve to illuminate the subject.
The artist El Greco endeavored to educate himself as a learned artist according to the zeitgeist of the Italian late Renaissance and thus to set himself apart from the artisan . Protagonists such as Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo , Raffael or Titian were considered evidence of this idea, which also fitted well into the concept of the contemporary Mannerists . Even later, in Spain, he was considered an educated man. This is how Francisco Pacheco recalled visiting El Greco in 1611:
“Not only the ancients have risen through learning. Even in our century there were learned men, not only in painting, but also in humanistic education, like that. . . Dominico Greco, who was a great philosopher and a witty person and wrote about painting. "
His library contained books on many fields of knowledge, such as philosophy, literature, poetry, religion, art and architecture.
The Counter Reformation
When the picture was taken, El Greco was friends with the Croatian miniature painter Giulio Clovio , who was in the service of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and who produced his famous book of hours . Thanks to Giulio Clovio, El Greco found entrance to the meeting place of the intellectual elite of Rome in the Palazzo Farnese . This is evidenced by a letter of recommendation from Clovio to the cardinal dated November 16, 1570, in which Clovio asks the cardinal for a short time to admit El Greco to the Palazzo Farnese until the latter has found accommodation in Rome. This also explains El Greco's supporters to the Counter Reformation . The Cardinal Farnese continued the Council of Trent , at which a reform of ecclesiastical art in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation was pursued. The regulations issued in its last meeting should, among other things, A. ensure that everything that is impure and that should give a work a challenging character is avoided. A number of authors have tried to comment on these vague rules, including Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who in his Dialogue On the Errors of Painters in Relation to History , published in 1564, stated:
“That is all I notice in this beautiful, sacred story, which should be faithful, pure, simple, true and morally painted; likewise it should be preached and written down faithfully, plainly, true, morally and as a whole. It should be filled with horror, horror, and astonishment so that the viewers groan, tremble, and grieve rather than laugh, throw them high and mockery, and regard them as something of little value. Because not everyone wants to learn to paint, but everyone should learn to be a good Christian. "
This could explain that the artist was only concerned with the narration of history in this sense and that he only attached minor importance to the artistic subtleties of execution, perspective, iconography and the use of quotations from other artists.
Provenance and attribution
The picture was acquired by Bonaventura Rossi in 1741 along with 69 other paintings from Venice. In the gallery catalogs from 1765 it was listed as a work by Leandro Bassano , and it was only assigned as El Greco's work in 1874 by Carl Justi .
literature
- Jutta Held : El Greco's interpretations of "healing the blind" . In: Peter K. Klein , Regine Prange (Ed.): Zeitenspiegelung. On the importance of traditions in art and art history. Festschrift for Konrad Hoffmann . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1998, pp. 109-122 ISBN 978-3-496-01192-7
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harald Marx (Ed.) Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden, Volume I The Exhibited Works , Cologne 2005, p. 244
- ↑ Wolfgang Braunfels (ed.): Lexicon of Christian Iconography . WBG, Darmstadt 2012, vol. 1, p. 304
- ^ A b Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: inventory catalog of Spanish painting , edited by Matthias Less a. A., Prestel, Munich 2012, pp. 154–161
- ↑ Jonathan Brown et al. A .: El Greco and Toledo. Frölich and Kaufmann, Berlin 1983, p. 92
- ^ Michael Imhof: El Greco masterpieces in large format. Imhof, Passau 2012, p. 16
- ↑ Hubert Jedin: The Council of Trient, An overview of the research into its history. Rome 1948, p. 25
- ↑ Werner Weisbach: The baroque as art of the counter-reformation. Cassirer, Berlin 1921, p. 11
- ↑ Thomas W. Gaethgens and Uwe Fleckner (eds.): History of the classical picture genres in source texts and commentaries, Volume 1, history painting ; WBG, Darmstadt 2003, p. 103
- Bible quotes
- ↑ Mt 9.27-31 EU
- ↑ Mt 20 : 29-34 EU
- ↑ Mt 21,14 EU
- ↑ Mk 8.22-26 EU
- ↑ Mk 10.46-52 EU
- ↑ Lk 18.35-43 EU
- ^ Jn 9 : 1-7 EU