After a few weeks without appearing in these parts, I return to the ring. I have one De Quervain’s tenosynovitis that, said in Christian, it is a disease that damages the tendons of the wrist on the side of the thumb, and, consequently, I cannot spend much time writing. But here I am. To bad weather, good face!
We enter Easter. For the Catholic Church, this period, called Easter Time, is the period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost. Says rule 22 of the Universal Norms of the Liturgical Year, that the period of fifty days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday “must be celebrated with joy and jubilation, as if it were a single and unique holiday, like a great Sunday.” And, Pentecost is the “commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles of Jesus Christ, which marks the birth of the Church.” Both religious festivals have been widely disseminated in Art. I invite you, dear readers, to look for the images on the Internet of the works that I name; this will help you to see the details that I am trying to present in the article.
I begin by mentioning the fantastic oil on canvas, Resurrection of Christ, presumably painted between 1499 and 1502 by Raphael Sanzio. It was bought by the São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil, constituting the only work of Rafael preserved in South America. It is a representation where soldiers appear, two angels, and from the open tomb of Christ comes the figure of Christ wrapped in his shroud, miraculously rising, bordered by a halo and carrying a banner of the cross.
But, given my well-known esteem for El Greco, I want to mention The Resurrection of Christ, oil on canvas, painted in the period 1597-1604 for the altarpiece of Doña María de Aragón. Today, preserved in the Prado Museum, Madrid. He was on the sides accompanying the Crucifixion –In the center– already Pentecost. If the three works of the artist are seen, it is possible to observe that the Resurrection she is the most passionate of all; the foreshortening of the soldiers, especially the one that seems to come out into the spectator’s space, produces a dramatic effect. In contrast, El Greco represents Christ with a serene expression; carrying the banner of victory in his left hand, painted with a characteristic white of the painter; while the cape is red and, whose symbolism, is the martyrdom he has suffered. In addition, he has added the rhomboid nimbus, frankly related to Byzantine art.
When analyzing the figure of Christ, the frontality stands out and a very peculiar note is that he keeps his feet united as if he were continuing on the cross. For their part, the soldiers present different positions and reactions to an absolutely prodigious event that they are watching; some have raised arms and this posture accentuates the foreshortening. Only one of the soldiers is seated and has his head, covered with a helmet, resting on his left arm. One of the fantastic dramatic effects of this work by El Greco is the tension it draws in the muscles of the soldiers.
Besides being a great painter, El Greco possesses great mysticism; reason for which, in most of his works there is a strong religious character, and the light has an outstanding meaning. In fact, for El Greco, not only can light constitute the composition of his paintings, but it can also make the paintings have a complete form. In this way, Pentecost it may be his most outstanding work, according to many of his analysts.
Pentecost, as i pointed out as above, it was part of the upper body of the altarpiece made by El Greco between 1595-1600 for the Colegio de Doña María de Aragón. As in the other paintings of the group to which I have referred, the painter uses triangles; in Pentecost, are reversed to organize the composition. But, the two foreground figures are painted with a different approach, surely the underlying conception was to bring them even closer to the viewer
Precisely, I am going to refer to these figures; it is evident that they show greater dynamism than the rest of the images. The painting is presided over by the Virgin, seated, and around her are concentrated both the apostles and Mary Magdalene; The technique used is the artistic standard that aligns the heads at the same height, forming a continuous frieze, known by the name of isocephaly, an obvious sign of the bond he still had with the Gothic world.
Where does the light come from? The dove, representation of the Holy Spirit, is the origin of illumination; the gazes of the characters converge on that point. El Greco has painted this light so strongly, so clearly that one of its effects consists in the loss of color in Mary’s tunic, as in some of the figures. There is a series of flames burning over the heads of the images, which are shown in extreme amazement by the divine manifestation; They look up to heaven and the light of God revealed in the representation of the Holy Spirit whom I have named emerges.
The stylization of the figures in a format “from one to thirteen, that is, the head is the thirteenth part of the body”; El Greco uses an image that corresponds to one of the most striking characteristics of his works, completely removed from the classical canon of beauty, where proportion and beauty were its keys. The figures of El greco no longer let their anatomy be seen, as in the period when the influence of Michelangelo Buonarroti left a deep mark on his paintings from that period. On the contrary, he wraps them in robes and their heads are small.
El Greco, in Pentecost, also eliminates the landscape as a resource to give perspective. The colors used by the artist are very diverse, mainly strong tones, and the light produces impressive effects throughout the work. Undoubtedly, this spectacular use of lighting comes from his days in Venice with Tintoretto, his specialists point out. In short, Pentecost it vibrates like the flames that preside over it; Some critics have described it as “a dance of lights.”
For many, faith has nothing to do with culture and its various manifestations. for my part, I see it the other way around; If art provokes and encourages an authentic humanization, art is promoting respect for the dignity of the human being.
Venezuela must live its Pentecost, it deserves its Easter Season.
@yorisvillasana
