Two European Landscape Paintings
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Two European paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art display very different approaches to the creation of atmospheric landscapes. In both these works, however, there is a similarity in the painters' view of the human element as an intrinsic part of the natural landscape that they depict. The View of Toledo (c. 1600) by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known as El Greco, shows the Greek painter's adopted city of Toledo in Spain. Set against a stormy sky, selected parts of the city are displayed in a dramatic manner that effectively blends them with the landscape, giving them a status similar to, but apart from, that of the natural forms in the picture. A few tiny human figures hint at the strength of the human beings who created these forms that compete with the grander scale of nature. In The Weeders (1868), by the French painter Jules Breton, a group of women work close to the ground, mostly below the horizon line, and, except for one figure, seem to blend with the earth on which they labor. The single erect figure seems to bear the potentiality that human beings possess and which can transcend their relationship with the earth on which they depend. The expressionist qualities of El Greco's great work and the realism of Breton's painting contrast sharply. The two painters used very different means to explore related themes about humanity and nature. In El Greco's painting a dark and stormy sky is filled with the forms of white and gray clouds that run from the horiz
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htly purple clouds that continue along the horizon. These vague cloud shapes also reflect the rounded forms of the heads, shoulders, and backs of the stooping women.
The arms and heads of the working women pick up some reflections from the setting sun but, for the most part, their forms, with their spreading skirts, blend in with the increasing darkness of the field. The erect woman, however, faces the sun and, since she is set off at an angle and is not directly between the viewer and the sun, it is possible to see the reflection of the dying light on her face and upper torso. There is nothing overtly dramatic about Breton's scene. It is calm and composed with a careful, but seemingly random, distribution of the figures on the field. But the glow of the setting sun, while it creates a rather mellow atmosphere, cannot be viewed as a sentimentalizing glow. Because the women in the foreground are so much larger than the more distant erect figure the drama of the contrast between their positions is also controlled and reduced. The picture invokes the weariness that they must be feeling. It is the end of the day and they have probably been hard at work for quite some time--as the sun goes down the ground must also be growing
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1618
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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