Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Valasquez and El Greco at the Nasher Duke Museum

We went to the big "El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III" exhibition that just started at the still relatively new Nasher Museum at Duke U.

The El Greco's and Velázquez's were (mostly) wonderful and sometimes breathtaking. Pieces like the El Greco Fray Hortensio Felix Paravencino and Argote avoid all of things I disliked in many of the minor pieces. Dislikes? Well, the religious imagery weirds me out, the use of the odd and out of place details in the outer edges of the pieces makes no sense, and the painting of children so that they look like bizarre small adults is creepy. I was impressed with some of the Maino pieces and the Cotan still lifes.

El Greco's St James (Santiago el Mayor) shown below with its rich green cloak and lovely long hand was my favorite.



Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That work by El Greco, "St. James (Santiago el Mayor)," is also my 11-year-old son's favorite painting!

Chris Beacham said...

He has good taste! ;-)

But what did you like?