At the Onassis Cultural Center (New York) opened the exhibition "The origins of El Greco. The works of Cretan artists XV - XVI centuries, including early works by El Greco

In New York's Onassis Cultural Center, opened the exhibition "The origins of El Greco. The exhibition displays 46 paintings XV - XVI centuries, including early works of the great El Greco (El Greco). They came from public and private collections in the United States and Canada, Greece and other European countries, and many of them are exhibited in the United States for the first time.

curator of the exhibition Drandaki Anastasia (Anastasia Drandaki), the lead department Byzantine art at the Museum Benaki (Athens), said: "Cretan icon painters XV - XVI centuries, famous for his mastery of creating flawless icons not only in the traditional Byzantine manner, but in the spirit of Western European samples. Of course, the dialogue between Western and Byzantine painting began much earlier, but at this time under the influence of some factors of the Western European style became more apparent in the works of Cretan artists, especially after Constantinople fell after a long siege, under pressure from the Turks in 1453. Visitors can also see how the embodiment of these changes and trends were in the paintings of two centuries.

The exposition is 11 splendid collection of icons from the Church of St. Catherine in Heraklion (Crete). It was founded in the X century and belonged to the monastery of the same name at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the XVI century, it supports most scientific community of monks. And since 1967, is kept an impressive collection of Orthodox icons and other religious items. Ten collections of icons from the Church of St. Catherine before leaving Crete only once, in 1993 for exhibition in Athens. A final, eleventh - "The Last Supper" by Mikhail Damascene (Michael Damaskenos), - in 1999, even traveled outside Greece, the traveling exhibition of El Greco in Athens, Madrid and Rome.

Another four icons at the exhibition at the Cultural Center Onassis came from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It's "Lamentation of Christ" (from the collection of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II), «The Resurrection", "Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene" and "Lady Nikopeya with the holy Athanasius, Spyridon, Marina and Rohom and St. Demetrius on horseback." All of them have never taken out since it was sent to a collection of the Hermitage in 1930.

Exposition has finally re-unite the two parts of the triptych hand of El Greco: "Epiphany" from the collection of the municipality of Heraklion and Adoration of the Magi ", owned by Queen's University in Kingston (Ontario, Canada). The fact that these two works are fragments of a triptych, discovered only recently.

Visitors also will see two works by El Greco. This early work "The Assumption", which rarely leaves the church in Ermoupolis on the island of Syros (Greece), and later the Spanish period piece "The Coronation of the Virgin Mary, received for the exhibition from the collection of the Alexander Onassis.

The exhibition runs until February 27, 2010.

Material prepared Ekaterina Guseva, AI

Source: onassisusa.org , artdaily.com , artinvestment.ru