Coastal Life CLOSE TO HOME Story by DAVID CAMPICHE El Greco’s journey D own the river, over the moun- tains and through the woods — the pioneer’s journey from Portland to the Oregon Coast involved days of arduous travel. The trail unraveled in slow wet steps along a serpent’s path through JLDQWFHGDUDQG'RXJODV¿U7UDYHOLQWKH thick imposing woods stymied Lewis and Clark. Today, the highway out of our own River City to the teeming metropolis of Portland can be driven in 90-minutes or so, and therein lays the potential for rich adventure. And so it happened this month. Our mission was to see El Greco, or more on task, to see his paintings at the Portland Art Museum’s ongoing se- ries “Masterworks | Portland.” Once inside the handsome museum with its cornucopia of art treasures, I queried a docent about the collection of El Grecos. “Upstairs and to the back of the medieval collection,” was his answer. The response VWUXFNPHDVRGGIRUWKDWVSDFHLVGH¿QHG as a rectangle hardly larger than a closet. Up the stairs we rushed, full of expecta- tion. At the end of the gallery of 15th- and 16th-century European paintings, another masterwork awaited. Here was the prize, an authentic late 16th-century El Greco. Immediately, I was disappointed. That sin- gle article translates joyously into just one El Greco — a stunning portrait, yes — but a single painting on its own. All alone! And that is the dilemma of a small museum. That is why we must continue our support. For sure, the Portland Art Museum is not the great Prado of Spain, the renowned museum that houses the world’s largest collection of the same Greek painter, Do- menikos Theotakopoulos, known as El The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Friends of the Cleveland Museum of Art in memory of J.H. Wade Greco, who spent his best years painting El Greco [Domenikos Theotokopoulos] (Spanish, born Greece, 1541-1614), “The Holy Family with Saint Mary Magdalen,” in Spain. $UW KLVWRULDQV GH¿QH (O *UHFR DV D 1590-1595, oil on canvas. Mannerist. By that they mean, this paint- er and a few others, began to distort the to high Renaissance painters, Titian, Ra- spective of the human form on canvas human form to achieve greater expres- phael and Michelangelo and their quest or board. The Mannerists then, extended sion. It was perhaps a natural response to achieve perfect proportion and per- six-foot perfections of human beings up- 4 | February 5, 2015 | coastweekend.com ward to 10 feet. Human giants. At least, these are elegant cartoons. At best, they are masterworks. In this paint- LQJWKHYLUJLQLVVWXQQLQJÀRDWLQJLQDOD- pis-blue turbulent sky in an existential time and space. Joseph is there, and Mary Mag- dalen, she, staring at the Christ child with a sorrowful gaze, as if alluding to Christ’s ultimate suffering and death. Jesus himself squirms in an infant’s body, but his telling eyes speak far beyond his early years. His small hand reaches forward, gently, ele- gantly. Already, he seems to foreshadow the gift of God. The backdrop of the “Holy Family with 6DLQW0DU\0DJGDOHQ´LV¿OOHGZLWKHWKH- real light, a Holy light. Colors compete in a play of brilliant light and dark shadow, a technique foreshadowed by Leonardo and GH¿QHG DV FKLDURVFXUR 7KDW LV 'D 9LQFL not the infamous Ninja Turtle. How chal- lenging it must have been to follow that great Renaissance master. The painting is universally called a masterpiece. Because of the artist’s reli- giously induced vision and his mastery of the paint brush, El Greco will be forever associated with brilliance, if not genius. Abstraction of his subjects propel El Gre- co’s paintings beyond time and place; pro- pel them beyond a normal painter’s reach LQWR WKH UDUL¿HG ZRUOG RI D IHZ OLNH 9DQ Gogh or Picasso. I choose to believe that (O*UHFRLVWKH¿UVWPRGHUQLVW This Spaniard, known as “the Greek,” expands a painter’s limits to the extreme. Remember, this is the end of the 16th cen- tury. Remember, the Inquisition and its consequences. El Greco took chances. He was not always safe. This, then, begs a greater question: Would you travel 100 miles to see a single masterwork? Might you forfeit a Sunday sports game to see a painting of such stat- ure? I humbly suggest this could be a good idea. The exhibit is on loan from the Cleve- land Museum of Art until April. Opportu- nity missed is opportunity lost. Chances are, El Greco will not return.