El Greco time-travels to the 1900s and paints View of Toledo to trick future artists and art historians.

If a random person off the street saw El Greco’s View of Toledo, I don’t think they would say a contemporary of Michelangelo painted it. Most likely they would think it would be a painter closer to modern day.

Even though most of El Greco’s works are of Jesus and his Ma, he liked playing with landscapes, of which only two survive today. This landscape is psychedelic! The perspective is a little wonky and the sky has that crazy contrast. Maybe judgment day is upon us; Heaven looks quite pissed while we live in sin!

He obviously took some artistic liberties with the physics of the city, too: Looking down into the gorge with one part, looking up at the hill with another, seeing more sides of the building than possible, changing the position of the Alcazar and Cathedral.

This is one of the paintings Spanish Art History Profs love to use as the birthplace of modern art. They try to trace most of the modern “isms” to it: The buildings are Picasso, the sky is Van Gogh, the viewpoints are Cézanne, and the rest is Monet.  

The painting made its way into the sticky and sugary American hands of Henry Osborne Havemeyer. Like most rich people he felt the need to collect valuables to be part of the rich kids club. They have money, so why not buy things they know nothing about? Maybe I am being a little unfair – who wouldn’t be a little spend happy when you have the money! But, he had to check in with wifey Louisine before purchasing. She was the real art buyer (or at least she thought) since she let her friend, Mary Cassatt, tell her what to get, and bought up a lot of Degas and Monet (Maybe she mistook this El Greco for one of theirs?). She ended up making 33 Atlantic crossings. One: I want to go to Europe that many times! Two: When did she even have time to have kids!?

Eventually, sugar revenues dried up and Louisine sanctioned 142 works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When the curators came in to look at their Fifth Avenue home however, they left with more than 10 times that amount. Thus creating the H.O. Havemeyer Collection – and of course another women is left from HIStory – I see no L in that attribution.

So, to sum up the facts: a Greek man, trained in Italy, lives and paints a town in Spain, which is shown in a New York Museum created by Americans. I just really hope those random people off the street realize this View of Toledo isn’t Toledo, Ohio… Hey, we can hope!