Pablo Picasso, Portrait of a Painter, after El Greco, 1950. Oil on plywood, 39.5 x 32 in (100.5 x 81 cm); Collection Angela Rosengart, Lucerne.

243 Spanish Painting - Research PaperTuesday, May 5

Professor Jessica Winston

Picasso’s Spanish Heritage: How El Greco is seen in cubism and in Picasso’s works

Gülfem Demiray

Marquand professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton Univer-

sity Frank Jewett Mather wrote in 1916 in an essay on El Greco,

“After three centuries of neglect, varied only by dispraise, the Cretan

wanderer Domenicos Theotocopulos has been reborn into fame. Art-

ists particularly make a cult of him… Criticism deals with him in the

most serious way.”1 British critic Roger Eliot Fry noted similarly in

1920 that El Greco was of “capital importance” for the artists of the

day.2 Pablo Picasso was one of those artists who were infl uenced by El

Greco throughout late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has

also been suggested that Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, which

marked the beginning of Cubism,3 is a product of El Greco’s infl uence

on Picasso’ art. This essay discusses how Picasso was inspired by the

Spanish Old Master and in which ways El Greco’s art is seen on Les

Demoiselles D’Avignon.

El Greco4 was born into a post-Byzantine cultural heritage in the

island of Crete, which was a part of the Venetian Empire at the time.

He was trained as an icon painter, adhering to a school of traditional

post-Byzantine painting that was permeated with Venetian infl uences.5

Refl ecting the traditions in Byzantine art, El Greco’s fi rst paintings, like

Death of the Virgin (Fig. 1), represented depth with vertical arrange-

ment of fi gures, used unnatural colors, and thus and made no attempt to

imitate reality. His artistic style depicted traces of non-naturalistic and

non-illusionist Byzantine art throughout his career.6

Described as a “restless spirit” by Jonathan Brown7, El Greco left

his homeland Crete and wandered around fl ourishing cultural centers in

Southern Europe before settling down in Toledo c. 1577.8 He improved

his art, thoroughly studying Venetian masters Titian and Tintoretto in

Venice9, where he was on a quest for fame the caliber of his artistic ge-

nius deserved; he transformed his style even further in Rome, exercis-

ing fi gure drawing in the school of Michelangelo.10 After several years

spent in Venice and Rome, El Greco’s canvases showed remarkable

improvements in composition, depth, and rendering of fi gures. Com-

pared to the version painted in the artist’s early Venetian years (Fig. 2),

the Roman version of The Purifi cation of the Temple (Fig. 3)

Figure 1. El Greco, Death of the Virgin, before 1567. Tem-pera and gold on panel, 24 x 18 in (61 × 46 cm); Panel Holy Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin, Hermoupolis.

depicts the dramatic changes in his style, regarding the modeling of the

fi gures and the relationship of fi gures to the architectural space.11

Natural forms were gradually reduced to an abstract style towards

the end of El Greco’s career, reiterating the traditional icon painting the

artist practiced in his early years in Crete. As his fi gures became less

and less correctly modeled, thinner, taller, and disproportioned, the bond

with the corporeal world in his late paintings was broken by such pecu-

liar angularities and sweeping patches of color and brushstrokes, as can

be seen in his Laocoön (Fig. 4). The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Fig. 5) is

another one of El Greco’s late works that renders a visionary feeling.

Commissioned by the Hospital of Saint John the Baptist, The Opening

of the Fifth Seal depicts the Verses 9, 10, and 11 from the Sixth Chapter

of the Book of Revelation,14 where Saint John narrates his witnessing

of the opening of the fi fth of the seven seals, whose opening alarms the

apocalypse.15 According to Sánchez, this is the most unusual theme in

Christian iconography for an artist to depict.16

Missing its upper part, the large painting is unfi nished and damaged.17

An exaggeratedly elongated fi gure of Saint John fi lls the left side of the

composition with his arms strained upwards, gazing up at the sky in awe.

There are fl ame-like non-individualized nude fi gures, pale representa-

tions of souls, lined up on a horizontal wave in an indeterminate setting.

The six fi gures in the middle appear to be in a perplexed state of mind,

Figure 2. El Greco, Purifi cation of the Temple, before 1570. Oil on panel, 25.75 x 32.75 in (65 x 83 cm); National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Figure 3. El Greco, Purifi cation of the Temple, c.1570. Oil on canvas, 46 x 59 in (117 x 150 cm); The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis.

Figure 4. El Greco, Laocoön, c. 1610-14. Oil on canvas, 54.125 x 68 in (137.5 x 172.5 cm); National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Figure 5. El Greco, The Opening of the Fifth Seal, 1608-14. Oil on canvas, 82.5 x 76 in (222 x 193 cm); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

surrounding themselves with yellow and green draperies given by the

putti that fl oat above the fi gures, in what appears to be a turbulently

agitated sky. A seventh fi gure on the right seems to be gliding upwards

to reach for a white robe.

Lacking balance and clarity in design, the composition defi es the tra-

ditional structural rules of the Classic and Baroque schools. The elon-

gated bodies of the fi gures employ verticality, while the draperies and

illuminated patches of clouds form wavy horizontal lines in the compo-

sition; yet, these lines do not build up a linear structure in the painting.

The large fi gure of Saint John is very close to the foreground, almost

presenting the scene on the stage to the spectator. The treatment of

depth is quite unaccustomed, as the distance between the slender souls

and Saint John appears to be big due to the difference in the scale of

their sizes; yet the red drapery between the fi gures is too short to ac-

count for that difference. The yellow and green draperies behind the

nude fi gures enhance the fl atness of the canvas and the shallowness.

El Greco’s approach to light and color on the surface reveals the

painter’s Venetian training, enhancing the tumultuous excitement in

every inch of the dramatic scene. A light source, possibly having ex-

isted in the lost upper part of the painting though not apparent in the

picture, illuminates Saint John, the four nude fi gures on the left and the

red robe, while the two kneeling nudes on the right are more in shadow.

The light shed on Saint John punctuates the dramatic expression on the

saint’s face, as well as suggesting tension through the interplay of light

and dark on the intricate folds of the Saint’s blue robe. The patches of

light that break through the gloomy sky and the chiaroscuro on differ-

ent textures, add to the sense of agitated motion in the painting, carry-

ing the eye constantly from one point to the next. Bold colors like red,

green, blue and yellow enhance the tension by jarringly standing out

against both the pale nudes and the maroon-brown background.

Despite having theatrical and dynamic effect on the large fi gure, the

intensity of light enhances the sensuousness of the unnaturally elongat-

ed nude fi gures that appear almost boneless. Sensual treatment of

Figure 6. Detail of The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Fig. 5).

their bodies create a certain air of lightness and alleviation of the

fi gures, adding to the visionary sense in the painting. The fi gures seem

to be in a restless constant motion upwards, almost like ephemeral

fl ames. Not only the setting is unidentifi able, there seems to be neither

an atmosphere surrounding the nude fi gures, nor a fi rm ground they are

attached to. The eye never ceases to move around the canvas and focus

on a certain part; it is constantly carried upwards.

The theatrical feeling of the scene, fl ame-like fi gures, and the dynam-

ic interplay of contrasting light and colors conveyed by El Greco’s free

brushstrokes construct a highly expressive scene that shakes the viewer

even at fi rst glance. With all its expressive qualities, the Opening of the

Fifth Seal is the painting through which El Greco is seen “most him-

self,” according to Mather.18

“[El Greco] didn’t know how to paint,” Francisco Pacheco said,

refl ecting on the artist’s visionary late works.19 Defying all the accepted

beliefs and painting techniques with his visual language and arrogant

personality, El Greco was completely unlike any other painter of his

time; his imperfect command of the Spanish language only marginal-

ized him more in both the realm of art and Toledan society.19 Holding

onto his artistic freedom fi rmly, he ceased to confi ne to the subjects

and techniques requested by patrons and revolted against the Tasación

system. The independent artist was “considered an artist of ‘new

Christian’ inspiration,” 21 as his Christ fi gures were free from dramatic

effusions of blood, while artists like Ribera, Gregorie Fernández, Juan

Montanés aptly exaggerated religious expression responding to the

Spanish concern with dogma. His fi rst masterpiece Disrobing of Christ

(1577-79) was accused of indecency and disrespect by the Cathedral

of Toledo, and as a result was rejected.22 His Martyrdom of St. Maurice

and the Theban Legion (Fig. 8) was rejected almost at once by Philip II

as well, to be replaced by a painting by Romulo Cincinnato (Fig. 9) that

responded directly what the commissioners were looking for within the

confi nes of Counter-Reformation thought.23

Moffi tt argued that Martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion

appeals to the twentieth century taste “because of its expressive brush-

work, its colour scheme, its nervous agitation and self-consciousness.”24

Figure 7. Detail of The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Fig. 5).

Figure 8. El Greco, Martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion, 1580-82. Oil on canvas, 176 x 118.5 in (448 x 301 cm); El Escorial, Madrid.

Figure 9. Romulo Cincinnato, Martyrdom of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion, 1582-3. Oil on canvas, 212.5 x 113 in (540 x 288 cm); El Escorial, Madrid.

According to Moffi tt, Spanish artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries were not capable of understanding El Greco’s unique modern

style that fused a bold Venetian palette into Michelangeloesque sculp-

tural anatomy.25

Unfortunately, El Greco and the innovative extent of his art had to

wait until modernity to be fully comprehended and appreciated. His

name was unheard of outside of Spain until the revival of Spanish art in

France during the fi rst half of the nineteenth century.26 Even after then

El Greco ceased to be popular; Louis Philippe’s Musée espagnol dis-

played numerous works by Murillo and Velázquez in 1838, while there

were only eight paintings by El Greco being exhibited, and the French

public was puzzled by those works.27 French artist Édouard Manet was

not fond of El Greco and he described El Greco as “bizarre”, although

he was extremely enthusiastic about works of Spanish old masters.28

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the element of light

and radiance in his paintings appealed to the impressionists; afterwards,

El Greco’s marginalized, somewhat lonely state in the society, as well

as the eccentricity in his style, was commended by symbolists.29 El

Greco’s rising admiration at the time can also be partially attributed to

the aesthetic philosophy of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, which

was followed by the artists of the late nineteenth century.30 According to

Kant’s philosophy, an artist is a unique creator who has his own domain

and is not bounded by rules or other external powers.31 El Greco fi t

Kant’s defi nition of an artist perfectly with his innovative approach to

art, along with his independence and courageousness towards authori-

ties. Even though appreciation for El Greco’s painting began to inten-

sify, he was still considered as an eccentric old master by most authori-

ties. Picasso’s Argentinean friend from his Academy years Francisco

Bernareggi y González Calderón dictated to a friend in 1946, “Because

Picasso and I copied El Greco in the Prado, people were scandalized

and called us Modernists... That was in 1897, when El Greco was con-

sidered a menace.”32

Complementing the reaction El Greco admirers received at the time,

Mather indicated that it was not art historians or critiques who brought

El Greco to fame; it was artists.33 A key name in promoting El Greco’s

popularity towards the twentieth century was the Spanish painter Igna-

cio Zuloaga who had a special interest for El Greco.34 The painter was

commercially successful, and thus was able to acquire a famed collec-

tion of paintings many of which were El Greco’s.35 Zuloaga attempted

to revitalize the interest in the Spanish heritage, which had started

fading with the rise of Impressionism, by depicting intense religious

themes and local Spanish motifs.36 Zuloaga’s art represented that of the

Generation of 1898, which went on a quest to defi ne a Spanish charac-

ter and analyze native traditions after the Spanish-American war. The

artists who took the leading roles in pursuing radical movements in art

from modernity onwards, like Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Salvador Dalí,

and Joan Míro, were all schooled within this nationalism.37

Picasso’s upbringing as an artist coincided with the aforementioned

Generation-of-1898-inspired Spanish nationalist movement. Born in

1881, Picasso was exposed to drawing and painting from when he was

very little, as his father José Ruiz Blasco was a professor at the Acad-

emy of Fine Arts.38 Picasso enrolled in the top art school in Spain, the

Academia Real de San Fernando in Madrid, but he frequently skipped

classes because he was not content with the academy; he preferred

drawing sketches in cafés, on the streets, and frequently in the Prado, as

Calderón mentioned.39 He was very fond of the old masters, particularly

El Greco, to the resentment of his father, who regarded El Greco to be a

very dangerous infl uence.40

Figure 10. Pablo Picasso, Portrait of An-gel de Soto, 1899. Oil on canvas, 24.5 x 19.75 in (62 x 50 cm); Private collection.

Figure 11. Pablo Picasso, Head in the Style of El Greco, 1899. Oil on canvas, 13.5 x 12 in (35 x 31 cm); Museu Picasso, Barcelona.

Figure 12. El Greco, Aged Nobleman, 1587-1600. Oil on canvas, 18 x 17 in (46 x 43 cm); Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Picasso returned to Barcelona in 189941 and was involved within the

Els Quatre Gats circle, whose leading painters were Casas, Utrillo, and

Santiago Rusinol who regarded El Greco as one of the greatest masters;

their symbolist style refl ected the El Greco infl uence in their fi n-de-

siècle melancholy, hollow-eyed and emaciated decadent portraits.42

Portrait of Angel de Soto (Fig. 10) and Head in the Style of El Greco

(Fig. 11) which were both painted in 1899, when Picasso was affi liated

with Els Quatre Gats, refl ect how much El Greco affected the stylistic

development of the young artist. The elongated facial features and a

melancholy emanating from the expressive eyes of the sitter, set against

a dark background are all reminiscent of El Greco’s portraits. In fact,

the desire to assimilate El Greco’s style is frankly seen in the sheets

of drawings by Picasso during those years. Fig. 12 shows a paper on

which Picasso scribbled Yo, El Greco43 amongst various drawings and

sketches that include El Grecoesque nobleman heads, a man resembling

an El Greco, and a self-portrait.44

Figure 13. Pablo Picasso, Sheet of drawings inscribed “Yo El Greco,” c.1899. Pen and ink on paper, 12.5 x 8.5 in (31.5 x 22 cm); Museu Picasso, Barcelona.

Figure 15. El Greco, Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586-88. Oil on canvas, 189 x 142 in (480 x 360 cm); Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo.

Figure 14. Pablo Picasso, Burial of Casagemas (Evocation), 1901. Oil on panel, 48.5 x 32.5 in (123 x 83 cm); Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Picasso went to Paris in 1900 and became close friends with French

writer and critics Gustave Coquiot, Max Jacob, and Zuloaga, through-

out his so-called Blue Period, where the painter painted monochro-

matic canvasses that echoe the gloomy blues and grayish whites that

were favored by El Greco.45 One of the early examples from Picasso’s

Blue Period, Burial of Casegamas (Evocation)46 (Fig. 13) mirrors the

split composition of The Burial of Count Orgaz (Fig. 14), as well as its

palette. Paintings Picasso produced in this period all display expressive

mannerisms, distortion of the body, and swirling dynamic composi-

tions. Coquiot claimed in 1914 in an essay on Picasso that the artist’s

Blue Period directly originated from El Greco, adding that Picasso was

very so absorbed in El Greco’s art that he decorated all his walls with

photographs of El Greco’s works.47

El Greco’s infl uence was still seen in Picasso’s Circus Period48 when

Picasso’s art shifted its gloomy mood to a much livelier one, as Picasso

drew his subject matter from Spanish imagery. The composition of The

Blind Flower Merchant (Fig. 15) is very similar to that of Saint Joseph

and the Christ Child (Fig. 16)49; although the subject matter of The

Blind Flower Merchant has nothing to do with the religious theme in El

Greco’s painting, the poses of the fi gures and the depiction of space in

both paintings seem parallel.

While Picasso was absorbed by motifs from his Spanish heritage,

the artist and literary circles were quite perplexed and directionless, as

the Impressionist and Symbolist phases of modernism were coming to

an end.50 Eventually, as artists withdrew from naturalistic representa-

tion and started looking inward to an intangible world of emotions

and psychological states, expressionism became the prominent artistic

movement.51 El Greco gained immense importance with the rise of

Expressionism, that was marked by the individuality of the artworks,

depending on the artist’s vision, and required “vitality, violence, and

impact,” according to Gray.52 The violent innovations of the Fauvists

asserted in the 1905 autumn salon that natural representation was not

important. Art became independent from nature as artists inspired by El

Greco’s vision, like Henri Matisse and André Derain, gained notoriety

with the inventiveness of their work.53

In 1907, Manuel B. Cossío compiled the fi rst El Greco catalogue in

Madrid, which sparked the interest in El Greco.54 With passionate color-

ing, agitated compositions, peculiar angles, and intensity of emotions,

El Greco’s canvases were interpreted as a desire for self-expression. El

Greco became an artist to look at, also because Expressionism favored

mannerism that revolted against the naturalism and rationalism of the

High Renaissance three hundred years ago and returned to the internal

world of emotions and spirituality.55.

In the Salon d’Automne exhibition of 1905, Picasso was especially

struck by Le Bain Turc by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, along with

expressionist works of the Fauvists. Picasso was startled by Matisse’s

Le bonheur de vivre in Salon des Indépendants 1906 and Derain’s

Figure 17. Pablo Picasso, The Blind Flower Merchant, 1906. Oil on can-vas, 86 x 51 in (218.5 x 129.5 cm); The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania.

Figure 16. El Greco, Saint Joseph and the Christ Child, c. 1597-1599. Oil on canvas, 114 x 58 in (289 x 147 cm); Toledo Cathedral, Toledo, Spain.

Figure 19. Henri Matisse, Le bonheur de vivre, 1905-06. Oil on canvas, 68.5 x 94 in (174 x 238 cm); The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania.

Figure 21. Pablo Picasso, The Harem, 1906. Oil on can-vas, 60.75 x 43.125 in (154 x 109.5 cm); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio.

Figure 20. Pablo Picasso, Two Nudes, 1906. Oil on canvas, 59.5 x 36.5 in (151 x 93 cm); The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Figure 18. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Turk-ish Bath, 1862. Canvas on wood panel, 42.5 x 43 in (108 x 110 cm); Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Bathers at the Salon des Indépendants in 1907.56 With the inspiration he

got from Ingres, Matisse and Derain, Picasso painted Two Nudes and

The Harem, which are regarded as preliminaries to his ground-breaking

work Les Demoiselles D’Avignon.57

Les Demoiselles D’Avignon is regarded as the fi rst Cubist paint-

ing by the literature. André Salmon declared in his “Anectodal His-

tory of Cubism” that the painting is Cubist and it is like no other

precedents.58Although completed in 1907, Les Demoiselles D’Avignon

was not exhibited until 1916,59 partially due to the discouraging com-

ments Picasso received from his friends and other artists. French critic

André Salmon wrote in his anecdotal history that “hideousness of the

faces froze and appalled” him and the others when Picasso showed the

painting privately in his studio in 1907-08.60 Dealer Wilhelm Uhde said

in 1938 that dealer Ambroise Vollard and critique Félix Fénéon “left

without understanding a thing.”61 Matisse was outraged and Braque was

shocked, while Derain said, “painting of this sort was an impasse at

the end of which lay only suicide; that one fi ne morning we would fi nd

Picasso hanged behind his large canvas.”62

For a century, many art historians acknowledged the extent to which

Picasso was affected by Matisse, Derain, and Paul Cézanne in under-

taking Les Demoiselles D’Avignon. Lately, some critics have asserted

Figure 22. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, 1907. Oil on canvas, 96 x 92 in (244 x 234 cm); The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

that Picasso was directly infl uenced by El Greco, like he had been since

1890s, and specifi cally by The Opening of the Fifth Seal. Richardson

confi rms the link by asserting that at the time Picasso was working on

Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, El Greco’s painting was in Paris at Pi-

casso’s close friend Zuloaga’s home.63 Laessøe asserted Picasso might

have already seen the painting earlier in 1902 on his journey to Madrid

from Barcelona to see the El Greco exhibition of that year.64

The incredible formal and stylistic similarities between The Opening

of the Fifth Seal and Les Demoiselles D’Avignon support the critics’

claim. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon depicts fi ve naked prosti-

tutes in a bordello, on a canvas that is very similar to that of El Greco in

both its size and its quasi-square shape. A fi gure whose face is marked

by Egyptian features stands on the left of the canvas and is pulling

a curtain open, echoing the St John fi gure from profi le with her up-

stretched arm. The standing fi gure on the right is also hastily opening a

curtain apart. Two standing fi gures in the middle that look suggestively

right at the viewer reminds us El Greco’s fl ame-like souls, especially

regarding the weird standing position the second to the left fi gure is in.

The squatting fi gure in the middle is in an impossible posture as well.

Her head, which is radically divided into two, is facing the viewer,

while her back is facing the picture plane; it is as if her head is turned

around 180 degrees. The can also be interpreted as a fusion of the two

kneeling fi gures, one of which is frontal while the other is dorsal, and

who are located at the same spot on El Greco’s canvas.65 Picasso’s un-

naturally depicted fi gures appear weightless in an undefi ned setting, just

like El Greco’s elongated and distorted fi gures.

Like The Opening of the Fifth Seal, Picasso’s asymmetric composi-

tion has no focus or balance. Numerous diagonal lines formed by the

bodies of the fi gures that interact with each other and produce a per-

plexing effect. The treatment of space is also very ambiguous, as depth

varies tremendously throughout the painting, as each of the elements

in the composition, defi ned by sharp lines, seem to be at a differ-

ent distance to the viewer. The blotches of white paint and the boldly

contrasting tones on the bodies of the fi gures echoe El Greco’s dramatic

approach to light and color, as well as adding to the turbulent anxiety in

the bold scene.

Figure 24. The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Fig. 5).

Figure 23. Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (Fig. 22).

Although El Greco’s traces on Les Demoiselles D’Avignon can be

very clearly observed, numerous other infl uences have been suggested,

including the aforementioned Matisse, Derrain, and Cézanne infl uenc-

es. Rubin asserts that the composition of Les Demoiselles D’Avignon

was infl uenced by the tightly grouped nudes in Ingres’ Le Bain Turc,

supported by the claim that Picasso was very fond of the Ingres paint-

ing.66 Miller suggests the developments in cinematography, geometry,

X-rays, and photography, as well as Picasso’s personal love affairs as

possible sources of inspiration for the painting.67

The literature also cites Picasso’s growing interest in African art in

1906-07 as direct infl uences on Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, drawing

particularly on the depictions of the fi gures. Picasso was alerted to Af-

rican art in Spring 1906, thinking that he was behind the contemporary

trends, after learning that Matisse and Derain had their own private col-

lections of African art objects.68 Rubin notes that Picasso made changes

on the face of the two fi gures on the right after his visit to the Musée

Ethnologie du Trocadéro to see an African exhibit.69 However, Picasso

fanatically denied any African infl uence on his art, after he heard a

commentary by Mexican-born artist and propagandist Marius de Zayas,

who asserted modernist abstraction was all “off-spring” of African art.70

Rubin also argues that Picasso‘s grasp of Cézanne was not fully

developed in 1906-7, adding that the infl uence of Cézanne on Picasso’s

art is very exaggerated.71 It actually doesn’t matter whether the infl u-

ence of Cézanne on Picasso is exaggerated or not, as Cézanne himself

was highly infl uenced by El Greco.72 The similarity between El Greco’s

and Cézanne’s paintings is so remarkable that Swiss Critic von Tschudi

said to Fry, “Do you know why we admire El Greco’s handling so

much? Because it reminds us of Cézanne.”73 Picasso himself said, “We

should look for Spanish infl uence on Cézanne… Observe El Greco’s

infl uence on him.”74

The commentaries that highlight the similarities between Cubism and

El Greco, also supports the idea that The Opening of the Fifth Seal had

an undisputable affect on Les Demoiselles D’Avignon. Pointing out

that Picasso’s art stems from his Spanish nature, Guillaume Apollinaris

refl ected in 1905 that Cubism “comes from far away, from the richness

of composition and decoration of the Spaniards of the seventeenth cen-

tury.”75 Crastre wrote in his introduction to The Birth of Cubism, “I will

show that there is Spanish blood in Cubism.”76 He argued that Span-

ish art was precedent to Cubism with its abstract, ascetic, and ritualist

tendencies.77 Picasso himself, too, asserted in 1960 that Spanish art is

the origin of Cubism, “Cubism is Spanish in origin, and it was I who

invented Cubism.”78 Morris describes the characteristics that underlie

Cubist art79 as “largeness of conception,” “deformation of perspective,”

and “the analyzation of the object in its relation to pictorial structure.”

These are all concepts El Greco was preoccupied with, disregarding the

ideals of the ecclesiastical and royal authorities. Other characteristics of

Cubist paintings according to Morris are cast-shadows, blurring transi-

tions, and exploration of form, which are again signifying characteris-

tics of El Greco’s artistic style. In fact, Picasso admitted in 1960 that El

Greco is a “Venetian painter but he is Cubist in construction.”80

The similarities between the personal and artistic lives of the two

painters add a delightful twist to the stylistic comparison. Both paint-

ers had their artistic training in their native land and then left home

to go to the artistic and intellectual centers of their age; a native of

Málaga, Spain, Picasso reached the height of his fame in Paris, just like

El Greco found his artistic niche in Toledo. El Greco’s innovative and

unique approach was fed by his Byzantine-Venetian heritage through-

out his career and he always remained as “The Greek”; Picasso always

drew upon his Spanish heritage and according to Crastre, he always

remained truly Spanish.81 Both painters formed a distinctive and eclec-

tic artistic style, building their skills on the acknowledged artists of the

past. The critic reactions both painters got are also very similar, as both

of them got ridiculed and rejected for quite some time before their art

gained acceptance.

The painting that intrepidly marked the beginning of a new era of

modernity, Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, depicts Picasso’s admiration of

El Greco and his assimilation of the old master’s style. The literature

points that El Greco was having a revival due to Spanish national

movements and Expressionism throughout Picasso’s early career. Hav-

ing been engaged with schools and artists that praise El Greco, it was

inevitable for Picasso not to revere the old master who he had been

following since he was a student. This is refl ected on the formal lan-

guage of Les Demoiselles D’Avignon. However, it would not be correct

neither to argue that Picasso is exactly the same as El Greco, nor Les

Demoiselles D’Avignon is a replica of The Opening of the Fifth Seal;

what made both artists original and innovative was their own interpreta-

tion on the artistic infl uences they acquired from previous masters.

Notes

1. Mather (1916), p. 57.2. Fry (1921), p. 213. Fry’s review entitled “The New El Greco at the National Gal-lery” fi rst appeared in Volume 6 of The Athenaeum, in February 1920. He later on published the essay in 1921 in Vision and Design, a collection of his writings on art and artists.3. See Cowling (2002), Green (2001) and Richardson (1991).4. El Greco’s real name is Domenikos Theotocopoulos, although he was referred to as “El Greco,” which means “The Greek” in Spanish and Italian (Brown, 1991, p. 69).5. Brown (1982), p. 76. 6. Brown (1991), p. 69.7. Ibid.8. See (1991) for El Greco’s detailed biography. 9. Brown (1982), p. 78.10. Ibid., p. 88.11. Ibid., p. 90. Brown also noted the group of four fi gures in the lower right corner of the painting as a “footnote in which the artist acknowledges his sources of inspira-tion.” The fi gures are identifi able as Titian, Michelangelo, Giulio Clovio, and “prob-ably” Raphael. 12. Brown (1991), p. 69.13. Brown (2001), p. 62.14. Rousseau (1959), p. 249. Rousseau wrote that El Greco was commissioned by the Hospital of Saint John the Baptist to paint for the altars of the hospital chapel, in a detailed contract signed in 1608. It is widely accepted that the painting depicts these verses, although there is not enough evidence, as the contract does not include specifi c information on paintings. 15. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Rev. (also Apoc.). The opening of the fi fth seal is narrated in The Book of Revelation, or Apocalypse. The passage recounts the prayers of martyrs in heaven; “9 When he opened the fi fth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; 10 they cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?’ 11 then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”16. Sánchez (1982), p. 175. 17. Rousseau (1959), p. 260-62.18. Mather (1916), p. 71. Mather wrote, “In the ‘Vision of Patmos’ (often misnamed ‘Sacred and Profane Love’) we fi nd him most himself.” 19. Quoted from Moffi tt (1999), p. 118.20. Brown (1991), p. 70.21. Bennassar (1979), p. 73-74. Bennassar noted that Ribera, Fernández, and Mon-tanés were exaggerating religious expression more so than Old Masters from other countries. See Brown (1991) and “Stoichită, Victor Leronim. 1995. Visionary Experi-ence in the Golden Age of Spanish Art. London : Reaktion Books.” on the dogma and concern with religious iconography in El Greco’s time. 22. Brown (1991), p. 72.23. Ibid., p. 74.24. Moffi tt (1999), p. 108. 25. Ibid., p. 112. 26. See Lipschutz (1972) and Tinterow (2003). Information on Spanish art and artists were incessantly being introduced to French circles through newspapers, magazines, and exhibitions, in an effort to shed the light on Spanish painting. The Musée Espag-nol recently established by Louis Philippe was also a part of the project.27. Lipschutz (1972). p.130. Lipschutz wrote, “Four portraits, one a self-portrait, and four religious paintings confounded French onlookers.”

28. Quoted from Wilson-Bareau (2003), p. 231. Wilson-Bareau also noted that the word “bizarre” had a bad connotation in France at the time when Manet used it. 29. See Cowling (2002), Chapter entitled “The Symbolist 1899-1904.”30. Gray (1961), p. 10. In the chapter entitled “The Idealist Background of Cubism,” Gray wrote that French symbolists and expressionists were infl uenced by the philoso-phies of Hegel and Kant. Even though Kant lived in the eighteenth century, according to Gray, the French intellectual circles followed the German schools lagging a century behind.31. See Gray (1961).32. Quoted from Richardson (1991), p. 88.33. Mather (1996), p. 58. Mather wrote, “Unlike other revivals, the Greco cult has not been preached in partibus by the middlemen of art; it has grown among the studios of Paris and London, whence it has spread widely.”34. Moffi tt (1999), p. 197.35. See Laessøe (1987).36. Moffi tt (1999), pg. 197.37. Ibid. 38. Barr (1966), pg. 14. Barr also noted that Blasco never discouraged his son from pursuing art as a career, even though he was an unsuccessful artist. 39. Cowling (2002), p. 52. 40. Richardson (1991), p. 290. Calderón mentioned that Blasco disapproved of Pi-casso’s interest towards El Greco, in the same passage where he talked about copying El Greco’s works with Picasso in the Prado. Calderón said that when Picasso wrote to his father about El Greco, and his response was, “You’re taking the wrong road.” Quoted from Richardson (1991), p. 88.41. Cowling (2002), p. 60. Picasso was born in Málaga, but spent most of his child-hood and youth in Barcelona; that is why he returns to Barcelona after quitting school. 42. Ibid., p. 62. 43. Yo, El Greco translates from Spanish as “I am El Greco.”44. Picasso expressed his admiration for the heads of El Greco’s fi gures in a letter to his friend Joaquim Bas, dated November 3, 1897, by describing them as “magnifi cent heads.” Richardson (1991), p. 90. 45. Barr (1966), p. 19. 46. Picasso painted Burial of Casegamas as a memorial to his close friend Carlos Casagemas, who ended his life by committing suicide. See “The Symbolist 1899-1904” in Cowling (2002) for Picasso’s friendship with Casagemas.47. Coquiot (1914), p. 147-148. Coquiot wrote referring to Picasso, “Il nous reviens après un voyage en Espagne, chargé de portraits barbares et, à la verité, très curieux. Cela encore ne dure pas; il court toujours après une originalité; et comme il s’est épris soudainement du Greco, qu’il a place les photographies des inouïs tableaux de ce Maître tout autour des murs de sa chamber, il innove la ‘période bleu’.” The text can be translated as, “He came to us after a visit to Spain, loaded with barbaric, to tell the truth, very strange portraits. It doesn’t end with this; he is always looking for originality; he invented the ‘Blue Period’ as he suddenly fell in love with Greco, so much that he hung photographs of the extraordinary paintings of this Master all around the walls in his room.”48. Barr calls the period in Picasso’s art between 1904-06 the “Circus Period”; however, it should be noted that some literature refer to is as the “Rose Period.” Barr (1966), p. 37. 49. Ibid.50. See Gray (1961), the chapter entitled “The Beginnings of the New Dynamism.” Rubin (1994) commented on the fi n-de-siècle depression of the period as “The inher-ited impressionist symbolist age of modernism was coming to an end and no solution was yet found.”51. Ibid. 52. Ibid., p. 26. Gray stated that Expressionism was “an assertion of the autonomy of the artistic vision and the establishment of a free rein for the artist to reconstruct visual appearances according to his own convictions.”

53. Galassi (1996), p. 120. 54. Ibid., p. 121. The catalogue was not published until 1908. Galassi also wrote that Cossío’s catalogue established El Greco as the “embodiment of authentic Spanish spirit.”55. See Gray (1961), the chapter entitled “The Beginnings of the New Dynamism.”56. See Rubin (1994) for details on the paintings noted. 57. Ibid. Two Nudes is compared to Les Demoiselles D’Avignon with its formal quali-ties and physical features of the nude fi gures depicted, while The Harem is subject to comparison due to its subject matter.58. Salmon (2005). André Salmon’s text was translated by Beth S. Gersh-Nešić as, “Picasso inevitably gave us an appearance of the work that did not conform to the what we learned how to see it.” According to Golding (2001), André Salmon’s “An-ecdotal History of Cubism” “set the tone and formalistic approach in which the work was to be discussed for some fi fty years to come.”59. Rubin (1994), p. 18. The painting was displayed for public in an exhibition orga-nized by Salmon, L’art moderne en france, in Salon d’Antin, Paris. 60. Quoted from Salmon (2005). 61. Quoted from Miller (2001), p. 94. 62. Ibid.63. Cossío’s El Greco catalogue recorded that the painting was in Zuloaga’s apartment at the time. See Laessøe (1987) for more details on the catalogue record and the loca-tion of Zuloaga’s apartment in Paris.64. Ibid.65. Laessøe (1987) is the fi rst critique who interpreted that the seated fi gure in Les Demoiselles D’Avignon was identical to the kneeling fi gures in El Greco’s Apocalypse scene.66. See Rubin (1994).67. See Miller (2001).68. Ibid., p. 92.69. See Rubin (1984) and Rubin (1994). 70. Quoted from Rubin (1984), p. 260. 71. Rubin (1994), p. 95. Rubin wrote, that it is El Greco’s example, “rather than Cé-zanne’s, which becomes important at the point at which Picasso begins to paint [Les Demoiselles D’Avignon].”72. Fry (1921), p. 212. According to Fry, Cézanne took his “great discovery of perme-ation of every path of the design with a uniform and plastic theme” from El Greco.73. Fry (1921), p. 213. Fry did not note when the conversation took place, but he indi-cated that von Tschudi said this remark while looking at the Lacoön. 74. Quoted from Brown (2001), p. 62. 75. Quoted from Gray (1961), p. 29-30. 76. Crastre (1937?), p. 10. The original text in French reads, “Je montrerai cependant qu’il y a du sang espagnol dans le cubisme.”77. Ibid. Crastre wrote on page 25, “il n’est pas moins vrai de dire que la peinture espagnole fait prévoir le cubisme: le génie espagnol tend à l’abstraction …” and on page 54, “ascétisme, abstraction, tirualism qui sont, je l’aid dit, qualities spécifi que-ment espagnoles, condamnent la fi guration.”78. Quoted from Brown (2001), p. 62.79. See Morris (1935). Morris elaborates on Cubism while asserting that the paintings of Fernand Léger “of 1914 circa bear a superfi cial resemblance to Cubist work.” 80. Quoted from Brown (2001).81. Crastre (1937?), p. 22. Original text in French reads, “Picasso est un grand peintre qui ne cesse jamais d’être espagnol.” It can be translated as, “Picasso is a great painter who never lost his Spanishness.”

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