The Tears of Saint Peter, Doménikos Theotokópoulos, (El Greco) and workshop, c. 1600, oil on canvas. Cau Ferrat Museum.
Mary Magdalene Penitent, Doménikos Theotokópoulos (El Greco), c. 1590, oil on canvas. Cau Ferrat Museum.
The importance of the El Greco paintings Mary Magdalene Penitent and The Tears of Saint Peter was accurately summarized by Miquel Utrillo when he defined both works as “one of the most commented upon moral and material attractions at Cau Ferrat.” Even today, many visitors enter the museum to contemplate these two works by the painter from Crete, who Santiago Rusiñol made into the incarnation of the ideal of the modern painter.
In the work of El Greco, where colour dominates over the drawn line, Rusiñol and his colleagues saw a clear precedent for modern painting. Rusiñol saw El Greco as the personification of a free, modern artist.
