The Holy Family allowed to escape a malaise

"Extravagant", "ridiculous", "bizarre". That is why in the 19th century talked about the work of the painter today regarded as one of the Giants in the history of art: Domenikos Theotokopoulos said Greco. Silhouettes swooping, faces stretched, distorted landscapes. The artist born in Crete in 1541, then under Venetian domination, died in 1614 in Spain, liked to represent "its" reality. Today, it describes the kind of "expressionist". The form is at the service of the message-oriented to a divine elevation which justifies this stretch of the figures. This mode of expression in painting is unprecedented and will remain outstanding until the beginning of 20th century.

Towards the end of the years 1590 after he has lived and worked in Heraklion, Venice (perhaps even in the Studio of Titian) or Rome, Greco, in Toledo, the synthesis of knowledge and tends to express a dark, domestic and subjective world. This is mainly seen in the exhibition organised in Brussels at Bozar. The majority of the paintings comes from the Greco of Toledo Museum is closed for renovation. All is cleverly presented and captivating just with stylistic unity of the quarantine of clinging works. The title of the exhibition is accompanied by the 1900 date because it is precisely in this period that the Greek at the unpronounceable name was rediscovered and celebrated by philosophers and then by the German painters as well as by modern painters such as Picasso.

But back to 1590. At this time, finally recognized, it can afford to fully express themselves despite the constraint of an exercise to the service of the Church and God. The exhibition in Brussels is a remarkable and paradoxical lesson of freedom of an artist working on religious matters.

As soon as the first rooms, we learn that Greco, like Titian in Venice, will produce many and repetitive manner. He designed a Web reference that is replicated at will by the small hands of the workshop. Although Warhol long before Warhol. The Greek is implementing a process of "copies to the string" with grounds recurring - such as the infant Jesus in a white sheet - usable from one table to another. The organizers of the exhibition show two "Saint Francis and brother Leo meditating on death", painted by the workshop. This topic is "considered the composition which had the greatest success through time within the Spanish art". The workshop also issues two crucifixions to the less surprising. Greco has ever dared imagine Jesus barely hidden sex. The small white cloth which conceals the most intimate part is about to fall. This vision of a good man who is discovered - it forget its position - is undoubtedly erotic. A point that some historians have found evidence of homosexuality by the artist, whose private life remains a mystery.

A free man

Greco releases also the rules of representation. The example of Ingres adding vertebrae to his "Grand Odalisque" in 1814 was already well ahead in Greco in another form; for example, to 1603, when he painted his "Annunciation". Marie is visited by the Angel Gabriel, who told her divine motherhood symbolized by a dove which arises in a beam of light. The arms of the Holy woman receiving the bird are excluded in an absolutely unrealistic manner. The expression "with open arms" never found a better illustration.

In "The Holy Family" of the Museum of Santa Cruz, Anne, Marie and Jean-Baptiste, in the form of a Cherub, surround child Jesus to their attention. Is one who is supposed to be Joseph, that he showed surprisingly off-field. The painter is a story of women which human is carefully taken apart. Moreover, the eye of Jean-Baptiste in the direction of the Viewer is so disturbing that he had simply hidden by a thick layer of paint by a former owner of the table. A restoration in 1982 showed this strange presence. "The Holy Family" allowed to escape a malaise. That is important! In the very Christian Spain of the beginning of the 17th century, Greco wants to remain free of his performances.

Find the Judith Benhamou-Huet blog on: guided tour of the exhibition on lesechos.fr/tvlesechos.fr/tv