Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple
El Greco·1568
Historical Context
Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple (c. 1568–70) at the National Gallery of Art is an early Italian-period version of a subject El Greco revisited throughout his career. The scene from all four Gospels — Christ overturning the tables of merchants in the Temple — was interpreted by Counter-Reformation theologians as a call for ecclesiastical reform, making it a charged subject in the decades after the Council of Trent. This version shows El Greco absorbing Italian spatial composition and figure grouping from Tintoretto and Michelangelo while a small painting in the background — possibly a self-referential detail — includes a portrait group of his Italian masters and contemporaries.
Technical Analysis
The dynamic spatial recession and warm Venetian palette demonstrate El Greco's absorption of Italian artistic traditions, with the muscular figures showing Michelangelo's influence on his developing style.
