Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)
ANNUAL REPORT • A 2008. ÉV - ADRIANA LANTOS: In the Wake of Jesus. El Greco's Saint John
IN THE WAKE OF JESUS. EL GRECO'S SAINT JOHN 12 December 2008 - 8 February 2009 Curator: Eva Nyerges EVA NYERGES. IN THE WAKE OF JESUS. EL GRECO'S SAINT |OHN. BUDAPEST 2008. HUNGARIAN TEXT. 36 PP.. 44 COL ILLS.. ISBN 978 963 7063 56 5 EVA NYERGES, IN THE WAKE OF JESUS: EL GRECO'S SAINT |OHN, BUDAPEST 2008. ENGLISH TEXT. 36 PP.. 44 COL ILLS., ISBN 978 963 7063 57 2 If asked to list three important Spanish masters, most people would probably include El Greco. Originally called Domenikos Theotokopoulos, this Greek master was a native of Crete, but spent his most productive years in Spain, where he also painted his most famous works. However, his career and individual style can only be understood in light of the experiences he gained in Crete, Venice and Rome. The El Greco exhibition, which concluded 2008, sought to place the incomparably rich El Greco collection preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts — which offers an insight into the master's early years through the Penitent Magdalene and spans across to his late period, represented by The Agony in the Garden —in a new context of Byzantine Greek icons and Italian works, thus highlighting the twofold influence of Byzantine traditions and the Venetian and Roman cinquecento, which can be discerned even in El Greco's very last works. The forty-five works displayed —paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures —were selected almost exclusively from the Szépművészeti Múzeum's own collections. Some of them have never been exhibited before, such as the two Byzantine Greek icons of the Hodegetria type in the opening section of the show r , which could be related to the Virgin's image in El Greco's early Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child. The marginal notes in El Greco's copy of Vasari's Lives reveal the erudite painter's ideas about the art of painting. From this source we know that he regarded Titian as his most revered model, and that he also admired Tintoretto and Schiavone. A Schiavone engraving, Moses and the Burning Bush clearly illustrated this influence in the show, as some motifs (such as the background landscape with its characteristic tent-roofed little houses) in El Greco's early Penitent Magdalene, displayed next to it, are clearly derived from the engraving. Tintoretto's Supper at Emmaus was included as a reference to the Greek master's interpretation of the subject, which closely follows the Venetian's model
