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| El Greco Burial of the Count of Orgaz 1586-88 oil on canvas Iglesia de Santo Tomé, Toledo |
Three Levels
On the first level along the bottom of the composition we see the literal burial of the Count, still attired in splendid armour (like a carapace defying death); his body is supported by two ecclesiastics in elaborate brocade vestments. These are, in fact, St Augustine and St Stephen, miraculously present, lowering the Count with greatest care into the tomb.
The burial scene is delimited above by an extended line of faces, like dots marking a border. The line is closed on each end by a group of three more ecclesiastics: including, on one side, a Franciscan who represents St Francis; on the other, the officiant in a white surplice, and next to him, with a magnificent cope, another figure who is undoubtedly a bishop.
The border-marking row of faces – where the eyes within the row compose another, narrower line – suggests a musical score with notes tilted in this or that direction. Above this lyrical introduction, the crowning passage is dominated by the figure of Christ in Heaven, accompanied by a celestial host of saints, the most prominent being the Virgin, St Peter, and St John the Baptist (seen largely from the back). They are present to welcome the soul of the Count, wispily represented as a new-born baby rising in the arms of an angel.
Exchanges
The frieze of faces, gazing some toward Heaven and some toward Earth, serves at the same time to separate the two realms and to align them. These spectators of the Count's interment are equally able in spirit to witness his ascent. The priest in the white surplice, seen from the back in an attitude of adoration, is the agent who enables the opening of this glorious sky. The earthly assemblage, watching over the metamorphosis and ascension, inhabits a nocturnal atmosphere, as if sharing a collective dream. Flames of torches are outlined against a murkily simplified landscape background. The figures are detached from their surrounding darkness, even as the luminous heavens overlay an actual night in an actual graveyard.
Bodily Distortions
Stylistic evolution is perceptible from lower to higher: figures at ground level are proportioned somewhat more conventionally; they are much less elongated compared to those in the sky, compared to the beings the ground-dwellers themselves ultimately hope to become. Heaven incites a lifelong aspiration to rise into eternity. Christ's draperies roll away from him like clouds, within which the blessed find refuge. Bodies, within His orbit, are ruled by new laws of gravitation and breathe a new air.
The Boy and Death
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| El Greco Burial of the Count of Orgaz (detail) 1586-88 oil on canvas Iglesia de Santo Tomé, Toledo |
The Boy and Death
At bottom left, who then is that young page or prince who points his finger at the Count? We might imagine that this is his son, obliged by noble idealism to carry on the earthly duties of the deceased. But scholars assure us that this is in reality the son of the artist. Thus, it is the painter who perpetuates the life of his son by means of the painting. On the portion of the handkerchief protruding from the child's pocket appears the signature of El Greco and the date 1578, which is not the date of the work, but the date of the birth of the boy.
This youth is the figure in closest proximity to us, the one positioned at our own height, and who seems to be saying that despite his tender years death also menaces him.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)