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El Greco at the National Gallery
Reviews

From: Sim
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 06 April 2004

Review

If you haven't seen the El Greco's show at the National Gallery go and see it. The artists vision is still singularly personal despite be catalogued and theorised to the point of extinction and if your at all sensitive to great painting you'll come away happy.

Could such paintings be made today? Has our faith in humanity turned rotten, stuck as we are in this dirty over crowded city of exorbitant property prices, the nervous rich and artists stewing in a brew of cheap cigarettes, dirty laundry and turpentine? I think not. But why?

Greco's art wasn't subservient to foreign larger sponsorship and pubic taste but was beholden to the church. Are we looking at overt propaganda or a totally personal vision? I suspect the answer is both.

Everybody seem to get what once must have been shameful daubs on canvas. I think it still takes some feeling or religious risk to fully appreciate these pictures. Mel Gibson's controversial film helps you identify with the physical pain of Christ, whereas Greco gives you the metaphysics of Christ.

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