Ποια φιγούρα μέσα στον πίνακα δείχνει εσένα, το θεατή;
My name is Morgan Haigh. I’m an art historian, writer and lecturer, and the painting that I’ve chosen is El Greco’s Disrobing of Christ. This is a painting from the late 16th century, painted by this artist who was born in Crete, moved to Venice and then Rome to complete his artistic training, and ultimately ends up in Toledo in Spain, where the locals couldn’t pronounce his Greek name, so they called him “The Greek,” or El Greco.
This painting is still in the place that it was painted for, the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral, and as such I’ve never managed to actually get to see it. But even just in reproduction, these painting— this painting has absolutely fascinated me. In the middle of this tall portrait scene, we have Christ, the main subject here, in this amazing red robe that is about to be taken off Him by the torturers on His way to His crucifixion. He is the central focus, but around Him we have arranged this amazing crowd of faces—of soldiers, of members of the public.
In the foreground, we have the three Marys on the bottom left, and a figure clearly preparing the cross itself, drilling holes into it ready for the crucifixion. But what I’ve always loved about this painting are two details:
The soldier on the left-hand side has the most amazing reflective metal armour—the way El Greco has achieved the light bouncing off that shiny metal surface I’ve always found just exceptional.
And the other figure who really brings this painting alive for me is hidden away in the crowd just behind the shoulder of Christ to the right, and he’s hard to make out at first. He’s this chap, older man with a beard, wearing a kind of floppy red hat, and he doesn’t jump out at you at first. But then, when you spot him, and you see that he’s the only figure in the scene who’s looking dead at you, the viewer… And he raises his hand above the crowd and points out to you—he seems to be accusing you, the viewer, of the misfortune that has befallen Christ. He’s saying you, as a sinful human, have done this to the Son of God, and it has this amazing powerful atmosphere about it—just this one face in the crowd. And like I say, once you spot him, you can never unsee him, and it changes the painting forever!
El Greco’s style is something I find really interesting. I mean, he seems so ahead of his time, so avant-garde, and so different to many of the painters who were working around the same time. It’s— will be no surprise to those of you who are familiar with other works by El Greco that, in the 20th century, painters like Pablo Picasso were hugely influenced by the style of El Greco.
Picasso saw many El Greco works when he was a young boy being trained in art in Madrid in the Prado Museum. He would have been to Toledo and seen this, no doubt, in the cathedral—as one day I hope to do, because I think this is one of the most extraordinary paintings of its era.
Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος, Κρης εποίει
