Romania saves El Greco art from U.S. sale, but he needs more cover

The Romania Journal reported this past week that the country’s heritage should not be sold, disallowing Christie’s in New York to auction El Greco’s painting “San Sebastian.”

Reading of this protection for El Greco called to mind another shielding he needs, the one that attributes his non-classical approach to painting to astigmatism.

That diagnosis first came from the ophthalmologist German Beritens in 1914. In his book “El Astigmatismo del Greco,” he wrote that the painter’s elongation of figures was the result of a cornea that wasn’t perfectly spherical, a..k.a. astigmatism.

But X-rays of El Greco’s paintings indicate that his figures were more realistically drawn, making clear that the artist elongated on purpose.

Art history also makes this point against an eye disorder. saying that Greek art in El Greco’s time, in the 16th century, didn’t follow realistic Renaissance art principles.

In El Greco‘s case, he sought to represent religious feeling by stretching his figures, as if to strive toward heaven.

Dr. Beritens’ gross misinterpretation of an artist’s work has become a habit of the medical profession. Consider Impressionism, recognized in the art world as a deliberate revolt against academic painting. But to hear doctors tell it, Impressionism was involuntary.

Ohio ophthalmologist James G. Ravin attributed the indistinctness and yellow-brown cast in Monet's "Impression: Sunrise'' (which the art movement was named after) was due to cataracts.

Dr. Ravens said in an interview with UPI in 1982 that Degas painted his ballerinas in the blurry impressionistic style because of deterioration of the retina.

Such a pronouncement tends to make fools of art critics, such as Paul Duranty, who wrote in 1877, "The Impressionists have made a discovery in color that strong light takes away the color tones ... The most knowledgeable physicist would be unable to criticize their analysis of light.''

Far from involuntary, even the very name Impressionism implies intention. Wait there’s more medical interpretation of art. Van Gogh's heavy use of yellow has been attributed to glaucoma.

The British Journal of General Practice contends that his ‘yellow vision” is a symptom of “Xanthopsia, - an overriding yellow bias in vision that can be provoked by many disorders.”

Art history tells a different story. Van Gogh's palette, once dark, brightened after he saw Rubens' work. In fact, looking at Van Gogh's work is like seeing Rubens' exuberant brushwork, bright palette and curving lines in fast forward.

To say that Van Gogh's use of large amounts of yellow was because of glaucoma would be like saying that Rubens' feverish brushwork was due to the gout that he suffered.

Wait there’s still more misdiagnosing of artists. In 1995, Dr. Carlos H. Espinel, director of the Blood Pressure Center at Metropolitan Washington in Washington, D.C., penned a diagnosis in the British medical journal The Lancet.

His presumed patient' was a figure in a painting by 17th-century painter Caravaggio. The doctor determined that the artist's model for "The Sleeping Cupid'' had rheumatoid arthritis owing to a swollen left wrist, jaundiced skin, flushed cheeks, bluish lips and ears, emaciated chest, and swollen belly.

I question the doctor's theory about why Caravaggio portrayed this figure with medical problems. His theory: "I think Caravaggio meant what we who care for the sick experience every day. That love transcends beautiful bodies, glowing colors, pleasure, and health. Love is there, if we awaken it, in deformation, in darkness, in suffering, in death.''

Thatdoesn't sound like Caravaggio. Clearly, the doctor doesn't know that the painter was one least given to noble thoughts. He had a quarrelsome nature and a violent temper. He stabbed a man to death and wounded several others. He was forced to flee Milan, Rome and Malta, go into hiding in Sicily, and live under threat in Naples. Altruism wasn't his thing.

The reason Caravaggio painted a lump on the left wrist of the angel in "The Sleeping Cupid'' is the same reason he exhumed a corpse to paint "Raising of Lazarus.'' He was fixated on realism.

How mad? To give a realistic air to Lazarus, Caravaggio asked his assistants to dig up a corpse that was in a state of decomposition and pose with it in their arms. When they asked to be excused because they couldn't stand the odor, Caravaggio raised his dagger to them and forced them to continue.

Saying that Caravaggio painted an afflicted figure out of sympathy is like saying that Rubens painted heavy women because he liked them that way. Rubens' correspondence shows that the opposite is true.

"The chief cause of the difference between the ancients and people of our age,'' Rubens wrote, "is our laziness and life without exercise: always eating, drinking, and no care to exercise our bodies. Therefore our lower bellies, overfilled by a ceaseless voracity, bulge out overloaded.''

When doctors talk about art, they can't just look at the pictures. Maybe they should stick to business. Aren’t there diseases that need their attention?

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