Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
The agony in the garden
The episode is the night of prayer on the Mount of Olives, after the last supper and before the arrest. Christ withdraws with three disciples, asks that the cup pass, finds them asleep, and returns to find them asleep again. Luke adds an angel bringing strength. The scene is the only one in the Passion in which Christ is alone with a decision, and painting keeps its parts fixed: the kneeling figure, the sleepers apart, the approaching lights.
Where it falls
The first scene of the Passion proper. Twelve titles in this catalogue place a work on the Mount of Olives, in Gethsemane, or in the olive garden — three names for one episode, and the record uses all of them, which is worth knowing when counting subjects rather than titles.
The record
The catalogue gives El Greco, 1600, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille in France, at 138 by 92 centimetres. The style is entered as Mannerism and late Renaissance and the artist as Spanish. The subject fields add surrealism to the religious classifications — a modern label applied retrospectively rather than a period term, and one that appears on nine entries in this catalogue. The measured palette reads as yellow. No commission appears in the entry.
Sources
5 references- Greco, Nicolás — Getty ULAN
Spanish artist, active late 16th - early 17th century
- El Greco — Wikipedia
Doménikos Theotokópoulos (Greek: Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος, pronounced [ðoˈminikos θeotoˈkopulos]; 1 October 1541 – 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈɣɾeko]; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor
- Greco, El — Getty ULAN
Greek painter, 1541-1614, active in Spain
- Agony in the Garden — Wikidata
description: paintings by El Greco, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille; inception: 1605; dimensions: 138 × 92 cm; collection: Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
- Christ Taking Leave of his Mother (El Greco) — Wikipedia
Christ Taking Leave of his Mother is a 1595 oil on canvas painting by a Greek artist Theotokopoulos Domenikos, better known as El Greco. The painting represents the first depiction of the subject by the artist. Christ taking leave of his Mo
