Once I Was A Clever Boy: El Greco and St Leo the Great on the Ascension

Once I Was A Clever Boy: El Greco and St Leo the Great on the Ascension
Excerpt:

El Greco and St Leo the Great on the Ascension

A painting which does, to my mind, convey substantially more than other depictions the theology, and not just the mechanics, of the Ascension is El Greco's Holy Trinity, which is sometimes presented as a depiction of the Ascension, or at least the reception of Christ, both human and divine, back into the unity of the Trinity. It was painted as part of a series of nine canvasses for the Cistercian monastery of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo in 1577-79, and is now in the Prado in Madrid.

Image: backtoclassics.com

Derived from late medieval representations of the Holy Trinity, familiar in paintings and alabasters, but whereas these are static and facing the viewer, in this painting El Greco infuses the theme with a profoundly human and tender feeling, derived from the tradition of the Pieta.