Translate

El Greco And Manet Paintings

By Darren Hartley


El Greco paintings show mastery in Post-Byzantine art, following the footsteps of Greek artists. El Greco spent a great majority of his time in Rome developing his style, where he adopted elements from both Mannerism and Venetian Renaissance.

It was in Toledo Spain where El Greco truly blossomed and the best masterful El Greco paintings were produced. The focal point of his work was highly expressive and visionary religious works. He rarely ventured away from this genre but when he did, he produced compelling portraits, landscape paintings, mythological works and sculptures.

Later El Greco paintings were particularly notable for their undulating forms, epic scale and expressive distortions. For El Greco, color is the most important element in painting. In this regard, he declared that color should have primacy over form. He dramatized rather than described in his more mature works. The strong spiritual emotion in his works directly affected his audience.

Manet paintings depicted everyday scenes of people and city life. Edouard Manet was a leading artist in the transition from realism to impressionism. His most famous works include The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia.

Most arresting among Manet paintings is a portrait showing a young woman wearing a black ribbon around her neck and a dashingly blue ribbon in her hair. The model for this portrait was Victorine Meurent, who also happens to be the model in one of the most notorious paintings in the world, also done by Edouard.

In Olympia, accredited to be among the most famous of Manet paintings, Victorine posed as a prostitute, completely in the nude except for a black ribbon around her neck and a satin slipper on her foot. In The Luncheon on the Grass, she posed as a naked woman surrounded by two fully dressed men enjoying a picnic. In Mlle V in the Costume of an Espada, she posed as a bullfighter in very unsuitable shoes.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment