Greco
Grand Palais ( 3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris) Oct 16, 2019 – Feb 10, 2020

Ran Dian: So what was it like? *

Thomas Eller: It was like walking around in a book. Not an exhibition. Interesting for historians though but with some really bad paintings, but revealing. There was one master piece, which they positioned sort of ostentatiously – all the way at the end – sort of like saying: “… and yes, he was a great painter too!”

At which point, my curiosity in how many times El Greco had actually painted the same painting, again and again, for different clients at different times in different places, was actually overly quenched.

So seeing the last painting was actually an annoying end to a trip after being lectured by the exhibition’s curators beyond the necessary.

* According to the Grand Palais website, Greco is first major show in France devoted to Domenico Theotokopoulos, or El Greco (b. 1541 Crete, Greece, d.1614, Toledo, Spain). He was a Renaissance master who came to prominence in Spain and was then largely forgotten until the 19th Century and then adopted by 20th Century Modernists and Expressionists as a trailblazer.