My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it..
Let’s study art history together.
Healing of the Man Born Blind
| Artist | El Greco |
|---|---|
| Year | c. 1573 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 50 cm × 61 cm (20 in × 24 in) |
| Location | Galleria nazionale di Parma, Parma |
This is a religious work of art, inspired by the Gospel of John’s 9th chapter:
9 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
There are a couple of things that really jump out at me with this painting. First, it’s that nearly everyone nearby is distracted. If you look at the many faces in the painting, the vast majority of them are not even paying attention to the miracle happening in front of them. Second, the whole painting is very muted in color – except for the blue worn by Jesus which is vibrant and stands out, drawing your attention. As this is primarily around Christ’s waist and legs, the color draws the viewer’s attention to the blind man kneeling next to that color.
This painting was almost certainly commissioned by the Farnese family, due to the fact that members of the family are painted into the scene, in the background. Painting the people who commissioned a work of religious art, into the background, was relatively common in this period. Is this why the people in the background are (for the most part) not looking? Or did El Greco just need them looking around so that he could more easily paint them into the scene? Or perhaps he’s making a point about the nature of blindness? The man being healed lives in a muted world, unconnected to it (based on their lack of attention being paid by others to what is happening.) Life and reconnection exist in the place to where our eyes are drawn – Jesus Christ.
Using our eyes, as the viewer, to make a commentary on blindness and its healing seems like the sort of clever think we should expect from a Renaissance painting master. (more via wiki)
Healing of the Man Born Blind is a c.1573 painting by El Greco, showing the healing the man blind from birth. It is now in the Galleria nazionale di Parma. It is signed at the bottom right-hand corner. It shows the artist returning to a theme he had first painted five years earlier, in a work now in Dresden.
History and description
In the 17th century it is recorded as being in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, as shown by a seal on its reverse. It was most probably commissioned directly from the artist by cardinal Alessandro Farnese – the painter had come from Rome to Venice in 1570 and was recommended to Farnese by Giulio Clovio, then in the service of the Farnese family. He had found an admirer in the cardinal’s librarian Fulvio Orsini.
Another reason for thinking it was a direct commission are portraits of members of the Farnese family in the background, which are not present in other two paintings by El Greco of the same subject – one is in the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden (produced during his first stay in Venice) and the other in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (from the time of his arrival in Spain). One of the figures in the group on the left seems to be Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and in the middle of the line cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, the latter being a post-mortem portrait. The work was sent to Parma in 1662 to hang in the Farnese palace of Palazzo del Giardino – at that time it was misattributed to Tintoretto. It moved to its present home in 1862.