The most fantastic of El Greco’s pictures is “The Assumption” in San Vicente at Toledo, in which the ascending figure seems literally flying in the air. “The Burial of Gonzalo Ruiz,” in the Church of Santo Tomé, is another splendid composition, revealing amazing skill in portraiture, for each of the figures in the row of Castilian caballeros was drawn from life. The sixth figure, from the right-hand side, is the artist himself. There are technical faults in the picture; there are mannerisms and extravagances; but the work is strongly individual, and we may echo the words of Ponz, the historian, who states that “the city has never tired of admiring it, visiting it continually, always finding new beauties in it.”
“The Expolio,” in the cathedral, we have already seen. If the work of El Greco begins to arouse a desire to study more of his paintings, a day may be spent in visiting the gallery and the churches that contain examples of his different periods. “San José and the Child Jesus” is in the Parish Church of St Magdalen. “Jesus and St John” in St John; portrait of Tavera, in the Hospital of St John; In Santo Domingo there are four pictures by El Greco. The museum has twenty paintings from his brush.
“Very few paintings interest me so much as those of El Greco,” writes Théophile Gautier, “for his very worst have always something unexpected, something that exceeds the bounds of possibility, that causes astonishment, and affords matter for reflection.”
Toledo expresses Castile, as Seville reflects Andalusia. For, like its stern surroundings of rocky sierras, the city is austere, even gloomy. Heavy iron gates protect the courtyards, bars screen the windows of the ancient houses, high, stout walls and towers guard the frowning town. The natives are reserved, a little proud in their demeanour, but not inhospitable to the strangers who come and go constantly, and lose their way in the tortuous streets, in spite of plans and guide-books. Persistent beggars hang about the cathedral, and squat, blinking in the sun, along the ramparts. The children pursue the visitor, uttering a few words of broken English, French, and German, asking for a copper in the English tongue, and thanking you for it in French or Spanish.
I must not forget that there is another Toledan more widely known than El Greco, and that is Lope de Vega, the dramatist, the most prolific writer of Spain, for it is said that he wrote three thousand plays. We are told that the playwright would compose a comedy in one night. His plays were often topical, and many of them must be regarded as ephemeral and poor; but De Vega’s stage-craft was excellent, though few of his works are great in a literary sense. Cervantes styled the dramatist “a monster of nature,” and envied him as “sole monarch of the stage.” Lope de Vega probably wrote for a space of fifty-two years, for he died at the age of seventy-two, and during that period he produced not only plays, but epic poems and twenty-one volumes of miscellaneous writings.
Cervantes, by the way, spent some time in Toledo, where he lodged in an inn, and wrote industriously. Some historians have claimed Cervantes as a Toledan, but his birthplace was Alcala de Henares.
Berruguéte, the great sculptor, the favourite of Charles V., worked long in Toledo, where he died, in the Hospital of St John the Baptist. There are many of this artist’s work in Toledo. The fine portal of the hospital, and the monument within, to Juan de Tavéra, were designed by him.
Alonso Berruguéte was born at Valladolid about 1480. He was a pupil of Michael Angelo, and studied the arts of architecture, painting and sculpture in Italy. Professor Carl Justi refers to the Italian influence and the “Raphaelesque forms” in Berruguéte’s pictures. But it was as a sculptor that he excelled.
Writing of Toledo in the eighteenth century, the Chevalier de Bourguanne describes the city in these words: “Houses out of repair, fine edifices going to ruin, few or no manufactures, a population reduced from two hundred thousand to twenty-five thousand persons, and the most barren environs are all that now offer themselves to the sight of the traveller drawn thither by the reputation of the famous city. Under the present reign some successful efforts have been made to recover it from the universal decay into which it is fallen.”
About the time when the chevalier wrote this, the Alcazar was being restored, and the silk industry in the city was reviving; but Toledo, even to-day, is not a flourishing mart. It is a place of dreams and memories, set upon a rock among savage hills.