El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541–1614). The Vision of Saint John, ca. 1608–14. Oil on canvas, 222.3 x 193 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1956

Landscape painting is rare in Spanish art. This scarcity can be tied to Spanish history. The Spanish Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century was staunchly against both classicism and humanism. Strictly interpreted Catholic doctrine viewed the subject of human nature and nature in general as corrupt and indulgent. To contemplate the beauty of nature was to indulge in a hedonistic, pagan, and heretical act.

As a result, a variation on landscape painting emerged. During the second half of the sixteenth century, when El Greco came to live in Spain, a mystical and poetic current swept the nation. Instead of picturing the land as lush and inviting, artists used landscape as the setting for sacred events. In El Greco’s landscapes, we can see this “fire” or passion. His nervous, tormented, mystical, and visionary approach to painting not only expressed the intellectual climate of his age, but centuries later it would also become a model for the next generation of Spanish painters, including Francisco de Goya, Ignacio Zuloaga, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró.

Spain began its long decline from predominance as a world power beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century. Throughout this period of relative isolation, Spain’s ancient political, social, and economic structures remained in place, thwarting its modernization. This resistance to change produced unique customs, culture, and art distinct from other European countries.

The vision of the Spanish landscape is more than the land: it came to embody the backbone of Spanish identity. Late-nineteenth-century writers and artists raised it to a higher level on the basis of its austerity and starkness, a combination of historic, mythical, and mystical vistas where the great events of the past had taken place. In Spanish painting, landscape expresses both national history and the individual and collective soul.

About the works

The only Spanish painter of the sixteenth century to enjoy universal fame today is Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, “the Greek”. He was raised on the Mediterranean island of Crete and was trained in the Orthodox Greek Byzantine tradition of icon painting, which had a lifelong effect on his work. After years of studying the Renaissance masters in Italy, El Greco settled in Spain and in Toledo found a nurturing environment for his passionate style of painting. While the impact of his work is timeless, El Greco’s vision was rooted in his personal experiences and the religious climate of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, a tumultuous period when Protestantism was threatening the Catholic Church. His paintings are intensely emotional and feature elongated distortion, the use of flickering lights and darks, and a strong sense of movement.

The Vision of Saint John is both one of El Greco’s last paintings and one of his most mysterious. The left side of the work is dominated by the figure of St. John, hands raised to Heaven. A large piece of satinlike cloth in yellow and green is draped behind the figures beyond. The painting depicts a passage from the Bible. In Revelation (6:9–11), an apocalyptic vision describes the opening of the fifth seal and the distribution of white robes to “them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” El Greco’s vision of this event includes distortions of form, shifting points of view, theatrical light, and spiritual energy. The resulting work has a dynamism that resonates even today.

El Greco worked on this painting from 1608 until his death in 1614. These were the hardest years of his life—he was bankrupt and had fallen into artistic obscurity. With no resources and his family facing poverty, it must have taken incredible faith to produce this visionary work. The painting’s broad, open brushwork is characteristic of El Greco’s late style. The work itself was neglected and vandalized; what we see now is only a portion of the original, with the upper part missing. After centuries of near obscurity, in the early twentieth century this almost forgotten artist was rediscovered. Today, El Greco is revered as a painter who allowed no division between the material and spiritual worlds and whose art was rooted in his deeply personal, mystical vision.

Joan Miró’s artistic personality and his way of representing what inspired him led André Breton, poet and leader of the Surrealist movement, to exclaim, “Miró is the most surrealist of us all!” Miró’s Surrealist vision juxtaposes fanciful invented forms. Schematized creatures and realms previously visible only to the mind’s eye are part of the artist’s private system of imagery, in which images carry symbolic meanings that vary according to their context. Miró encouraged the viewer to determine the significance of each painting’s imagery. He stated, “I have managed to escape into the absolute of nature.” During the summers of 1926 and 1927, which he spent in Montroig, Spain, Miró painted a series of landscapes. In Landscape (The Hare), he focused on one of his favorite subjects, the countryside around his family’s home in Catalonia. Miró said that he was inspired to paint this canvas when he saw a hare dart across a field on a summer evening. This event has been transformed in Landscape (The Hare) to emphasize the unfolding of a heavenly event. Against a primeval terrain of acid oranges and red, a hare with bulging eyes stares transfixed by a spiraling “comet.”

Miró’s Montroig landscape compositions include the line of the horizon that separates sky from earth—or the real world from the world of ethereal things represented by the sky. Line and color articulate a complex symbolic imagery. The generalized ground, rich in texture due to the uneven thinning of paint and the use of shadowy black, provides a warm and earthy support for the expressive black lines, the areas of red and yellow, and the staccato rhythms of dots. The colors that fill these canvases have a strength not seen before in Miró’s work.

Although Miró’s paintings may appear highly schematic, they are not without references to real things, as the artist made clear. “For me a form is never something abstract,” he said in 1948. “It is always a sign of something. It is always a man, a bird, or something else.”

• El Greco’s The Vision of Saint John tells a complicated story. Describe the story you see depicted here. Where might we be? What might be happening? How would you describe the mood of this work?
• Miró’s painting was inspired by the countryside around his home and a hare he witnessed darting across a field. What are the elements in this painting that seem as though they were observed from life? What aspects of this painting seem imagined?
• Miró stated, “I have managed to escape into the absolute of nature.” As you look at his Landscape (The Hare), elaborate on what you think Miró might have meant by this statement.
• Miró and other early twentieth-century artists, including Ignacio Zuloaga, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dalí, were deeply influenced by El Greco’s work. As you compare the two paintings, can you see any ways in which El Greco might have been an inspiration to Miró? Create a list of characteristics that these two paintings share.

• Art historians have documented that three centuries after El Greco painted The Vision of Saint John, Pablo Picasso studied this painting in the Parisian home of his friend and fellow artist Ignacio Zuloaga. The painting left an indelible impression on him and it is believed that its impact can be seen in his groundbreaking work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), which announced a bold new direction in modern painting as well as paying homage to his compatriot El Greco. View an image of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. What similarities can you see between these two works? What are the differences? What about El Greco’s work might have inspired Picasso?
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• El Greco’s paintings have a highly distinctive style. Once you come to recognize his approach, you will be able to recognize other works by him. Art critic Jerry Saltz describes his response to El Greco: “El Greco always seems in a hurry; he loves miracles, revelations and annunciations—things that happen in a flash. People appear dazzled; saints are stunned or swept off their feet; everything’s always swirling upward. El Greco’s not interested in structure or getting space right; he’s interested in irradiated color, icy light, rhythm, windblown skies, religious fervor, elongation, agitation and all the things oil paint can do.” As you look carefully at El Greco’s The Vision of Saint John, can you find elements in the painting that fit Saltz’s description? Do you agree or disagree with Saltz’s account? Research other works by El Greco and write your own description of his style.
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• Both of these paintings depict events that occur in an unreal time and space. What clues in each work suggest that they are not purely from the observable world? Create your own drawing or painting of an event that seems to take place in a realm outside the everyday.
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