On vacation: August 15

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, Coronation of the Virgin. ca. 1605.

Athens, Alexander S. Onassis Foundation Collection.

The Burial of Count Orgaz

The Burial of Count Orgaz, Santo Tomé,Toledo.

1586-1588. 480 x 360 cm.

Very large image, http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/greco_el/index.html

This is the greatest painting I have ever seen. It is a very large painting -- more than fifteen feet high, and nearly twelve feet wide, and it hangs in the location for which it was painted.  There is a row of chairs where you sit in amazement, a very poorly-dressed extension of the witnesses to the miracle, witnessing Miracle.

The fourteenth-century Count Orgaz was noted in Toledo for his great charity to the poor. At his funeral, Saints Sebastian and Augustine appeared and themselves lowered his body into the tomb.  Notice the saints' tenderness in this detail, the protective shape formed by their bodies  as they lift the dead weight of the body encased in steel armor, themselves encased in cloth-of-gold. The detail will enlarge a little here, but go to the link above to look at the extraordinary details of the embroidery on their vestments.

 Look at the extreme contrast in the sheer fabric worn by the man to the right, the detail so important that you can see how the surplice was constructed -- the central seam, the backing around the neckline, and then its fragility contrasted with the weight of the cloths-of-gold.  If you follow his hands, his left -- turned up and full of light -- points to an open hand, a red embroidery, the warmth of Augustine's colorful robe. His right hand -- turned down and dark -- indicates the Death's head on the robe of the officiating priest, probably Andrés Núñez, priest of Santo Tomé, who commissioned the painting from his Greek parishioner.

At his death in 1323, Count Orgaz, Gonzalo de Ruiz, had bequeathed Santo Tomé an annual donation. This was supposed to be collected from the good citizens of Orgaz as the town belonged to his seignury.  They had, reasonably enough, stopped paying in 1562, but two years later, Andrés Núñez brought suit to have it collected again.  He won his case, and decided to use the money for the chapel.  Some years later, in 1584,  Núñez got permission from his archbishop for a painting, and in 1586 a contract was signed with Domenikos Theotokopoulos.  

The commission specified the burial, the saints, and then the witnesses, which Theodokopoulos made into an extraordinary frieze separating the heavens from the earth, their flaming torches rising to touch the heavenly light, and their hands like flames. (This picture becomes much larger when clicked.)  

The commission also specified the glory of the heavens with an open sky, but the winds of the Spirit were too strong and they have filled the heavens with whirling clouds of witnesses and angels and saints, and pull the torch flames upward. The heavens are not so much full of light as they are are illuminated by the light shining out of the holy ones.

But the astounding thing in this painting is the conception -- and this is not a pun -- of the entrance to heaven.  Theotokopoulos has taken the Orthodox representation of the soul as a new-born infant, though in them Christ holds the infant soul above the dead saint.  Here an exquisitely beautiful angel gently guides the infant soul of Count Orgaz from the womb of the world through a cervix of clouds into the heavens.  Waiting by a person who is dying is very like waiting beside a woman in labor, and the heavenly witnesses turn in the intensity of their excitement at the death-and-birth to Christ.  Except for the only woman present, Mary, who is waiting to help the infant be born.

Blacks

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15th C. Ag. Nikolaos Orphanos, Thessalonike
Scene from the life of Ag. Gerasimos. 

 I have been saving images of blacks in Byzantine painting. I have not seen any work on this topic though surely there has to be something. I would be grateful for information, and for more images to add to the catalog here.  I have given what identifications I have, and would appreciate help with the ones that are not properly identified. This first image is unique because blacks are shown apparently in their own country, and two of them are possibly of higher status than the traveler who is going to be the beneficiary of a miracle by Ag. Gerasimos' lion.  

Otherwise, the blacks I have found -- nearly all by Cretan painters -- are with one exception slaves/servants or magi/kings. The images of slaves are reasonable.  That is how blacks would have, for the most part, been visible in the Greek-speaking world.  Since they are slaves, they get the unpleasant jobs: smashing things, cutting off heads, crucifying saints, massacring babies.

 [Ivrion ms.]

16th C Ag. Nikolaos, and do admire the slave's fashion sense.

Michael Damaskenos, 16th C.
Detail from Crucifixion of Ag. Andreas.

17th C Cretan Massacre of the Innocents
an enthusiastic combination of Herod's banquet, and Herod's massacre.

Blacks  are also shown as high-status servants, as in these details from a Crucifixion and two Adorations of the Magi.

Andreas Pavias, 3rd quarter, 15th C.
Alexander Tsoutsos Museum, Athens.

Ioannis Permeniatis, early 16th C.
Private collection, from Boulgaropoulou.

Ioannis Permeniatis, early 16th C.
Benaki Museum, Athens.
Similar icon in New York in a private collection.

But there is a second black in the Pavias icon, this one dressed like a wealthy Western merchant, completely outside the servant/king dyad of blacks in icons.  Unlike the surrounding faces, this is a portrait of a person known to the artist.

Andreas Pavias, 3rd quarter, 15th C.
Alexander Tsoutsos Museum, Athens.

In this next image, the black is the third Magus, following the pattern set in Western painting.  This icon is additionally interesting because of the inclusion of the man who seems to be portrayed as a stratiote.  I am tempted to think of him as the donor.  Donors frequently kneel, but here the first Magus is kneeling, again following the Western pattern, and standing shows the red trousers to best advantage.  There are a number of Venetian documents that refer to gifts of red cloth for the kapetanioi.

Early 16th C. Byzantine Museum, Thessaloniki.

Detail from late 15th C.  Alexander Tsatsos Museum, Athens.

A black Magus, in a late 16th C icon by Damaskenos is unusual in that the black is not the one most distant from the Child, common in Western images. It is also unusual in that there are black servants back holding the camels.

Michael Damaskenos, 16th C.
 Collection of Ecclesiatical Art, St. Catharine's, Heraklion.

A final Magus, this in a painting by Domenikos Theotokopoulos so indistinct he is best seen by his gift and stockings.

Mid-16th C. Domenikos Theotokopoulos.
Benaki Museum, Athens.

The next is a child at a Last Supper, and this is the first slave we have seen indoors.  That fits with what is known about slavery on Crete: normally, adult male slaves worked the land, or on ships.  The potential for violence in a violent culture was generally considered too great to risk male slaves in the home or the city.

Michael Damaskenos, 16th C.
 Collection of Ecclesiatical Art, St. Catharine's, Heraklion.
 

Finally, this manuscript image of the races of the world.  There is a problem with ink color, and reproduction.  Again, I need help with identification.

That makes twenty-two blacks.  All male.  I may have one more, but I cannot tell from the photograph if the dark skin is discoloration from aging, or if the man is really a black.  I speculate that there was an increase in the portrayal of blacks in post-Byzantine painting because of the new West African exploration and slave trade, in which Venice had a small part.

I found several of these images in the color catalog in Margarita Boulgaropoulou's dissertation [Thessaloniki, 2007] on the influence of Venetian painting on Greek art from the mid-15th to the mid-16th century. Επιδρὰσεις της βενεσιὰνικης ζωγραπηικὴς στην ελληνικὴ τὲχνη απὸ τα μὲσα του 15ου ὲως τα μὲσα του 16ου αιὼνα.

The other main source of images is the catalog, The Origins of El Greco: Icon Painting in Venetian Crete, edited by Anastasia Drandaki for the Onassis Foundation.