Saint Basil
Second third of the XVII century. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
This full-length frontal depiction of a bishop represents him wearing an alb, a rich brocade chasuble and a mitre. He appears in a meditative pose while reading a book, which he holds in his left hand. His right hand holds the pastoral crozier, which is decorated with a green cloth sleeve. The figure is located in the foreground, in an exterior dominated by a very open landscape with mountains in the background. In the midground to the viewer’s left, there is a long wall where numerous figures can be seen listening to the talk or sermon of a figure wearing a mitre, probably the same as the composition’s main figure, framed by a wide cloudscape that emphasises his monumentality.
Quite early on, the identity of the figure was recognised as Saint Basil even though discrepancies in the identification of the saintly bishop can be attributed to the dependence of this representation on the Saint Ildefonsus canvas painted by El Greco between 1608-13 for the Oballe chapel in the church of San Vicente Mártir in Toledo, now preserved in the royal monastery of El Escorial. Amongst other reasons, this may be explained by the fact that this important work by the Crete native was not recognised as Saint Ildefonsus until the 20th century. Previously, the saint had been identified as Saint Eugene or even Saint Blaise. However, both the provenance and early references in the painting clearly identify him as Saint Basil the Great.
Saint Basil was one of the four fathers of the Greek Church, born in Caesarea in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, in 328, who became a bishop in 370. Although not common in depictions of the saint, the scene in the background illustrates the meeting between the bishop, the emperor Valens and the prefect Modestus before the walls of Caesarea. That was where Basil showed his uncompromising stance against the advance of the Arian heresy. It was precisely in the depiction of the landscape with the scene in the background that the painter of this canvas introduced fundamental variations from El Greco’s composition, the Saint Ildefonsus in El Escorial. The saint is completely loyal to the original, but he has been surrounded by a larger space that has made it possible to include these landscape and narrative references. The pictorial treatment departs from the characteristics of El Greco in his final years; moreover, the modulation of the face or the clothing proves an artistic affiliation close to the naturalist painting of 1630-1660.
Ruiz Gómez, Leticia, El Greco en el Museo Nacional del Prado: catálogo razonado, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2007, p.250-252
