So, there's been a "game" going around Facebook where you post a picture of art and anyone who likes that image gets assigned an artist by the original poster to post and repeat. I was having far too much fun, so I've decided to expand, thus sparing all of my Facebook friends who really don't care. Poor things. I flipped through an art history book my friend Karli gave me and chose an artist at random. I'm going to try to do this every week. We'll see how it goes. Feel free to suggest an artist in the comments.

Week 1: The Adoration of the Magi by Domenikos Theotokopoulis (El Greco)

{image from Wikipedia}

El Greco is not one of my favorite artists. The Mannerist school of art to which he is usually assigned tends to unnerve me with its trademark elongated limbs. And in El Greco's case, the emotions he portrays are so intense: sometimes his paintings are difficult to view. This might seem odd coming from me, since one of my favorite artists is Edvard Munch, but I believe that difficulty has to do with El Greco's strong religious motifs more than anything else. Since he spent the majority of his career in strongly Catholic Spain and was raised Greek Orthodox, this is not surprising. There is some debate among historians as to whether or not he ever truly converted to Catholicism or remained Orthodox. There's always debate among historians.

I do love and admire his use of color. He was obviously very talented, but many of his paintings are not for me. I like this one because of his use of color to imply light emanating from Jesus. The background isn't detailed, just swirls of gray and black, giving the impression of turmoil and great changes happening.