The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, El Greco, 1586-88, Parish Church of San Tomé, Toledo.
A christian knight is lowered into his tomb by two clerics arrayed in gold, while the nobility of Toledo attend. Above them is a vision of his soul entering the heavenly realm. The painting by El Greco commemorates the Lord of Orgaz, Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo who died around 1327. He stipulated in his will that he be buried in San Tomé and that the landowners of Orgaz should pay the parish of San Tomé annually two rams, sixteen hens, two skins of wine, two loads of timber and a sum of money (800 maravedis). Don Gonzalo was much revered in Toledo. Each year on the Feast of San Tomé there was a procession from the high altar to his tomb in the entrance porch. There was even a legend about the funeral of Don Gonzalo which said that when it came to his burial St Lawrence and St Augustine descended from heaven and before the eyes of the faithful lifted the body from its bier and carried it to the tomb and then placed it there. Over the centuries the payment came from Orgaz, but in 1551 it stopped. The then parish priest Andrés Núñez de Madrid went to court in 1564 and won. In 1569 he commissioned a rhetorical epitaph in Latin from a noted humanist and poet. It was inscribed in stone above the tomb in the church’s porch. It begins, “Traveller pause for a moment..” It goes on to tell the legend of the burial and then the recent court case, contrasting the “gratitude of heaven’ with the “inconstancy of mortals”. By 1586 the same parish priest was ready to commission a painting. But this was Counter Reformation Spain and any such object of devotion required a a licence from ecclesiastical authority. The licence stipulated that the painting was to show the funeral procession with St Lawrence and St Augustine placing the body in the tomb, one holding the head, the other the feet and “above all this must be shown a heaven open in glory”. And so El Greco set to work. The whole area is lit from above by a ceiling lantern and so in the painting the light also descends. El Greco’s painting of the vestments of the saints and surplice of the priest with his back to the viewer, grounds the lower half of the scene marvellously in our visible and tangible world. And of course the painting is life size and positioned above the tomb. The dead man himself wears not a humble shroud but the shining armour of a prince or great leader; like an effigy carved in stone. Among those in attendance he even portrays Toledo’s contemporary leading noblemen and very possibly himself (half hidden on the left behind the friar) and also on the left his young son. In fact, the row of men standing at the tomb are also the annual procession on the feast day of the church. Above this he shows what we cannot yet see: the light filled glory of the heavenly court and the soul of Don Gonzalo being lifted up by an angel through what is almost a birth canal. See how masterfully El Greco uses a different cooler colour scheme to evoke this other world. This painting has so many layers of meaning; far more than the limited space and time this writer has. But it is so beautiful! Have a closer look above. It can be for the eyes of faith, such an eloquent prayer for those who have gone before us.
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The Catholic Chaplaincy is also a parish of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh (the Parish of St Albert the Great) and all Catholic students and staff are automatically members of this parish.
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