The family, who are also suing state-owned museums, say Hungary has about 40 works, including paintings by El Greco.
The Otsuka is the only place in the world to see all six panels of El Greco's 41-foot-tall "High Altar" together.
The Otsuka is the only place in the world to see all six panels of El Greco's 12-meter- tall "High Altar" together.
Yet El Greco also takes pains to link the two spheres, not so much to unify his picture as to underscore its implicit message.
In his wildly expressive, Mannerist heaven and eloquent, earthly realm, hints of El Greco's deeply idiosyncratic later style abound, one that would perfectly parallel the increasingly abstract theological tenets they embraced.
He also maintains a vast art collection, including works by El Greco, Lichtenstein, Motherwells, Picasso and Rothko, in addition to a real estate portfolio comprised of properties in Texas and Hawaii.
Athens' National Art Gallery showcases works from the 14th to the 20th centuries, and is best known for its collections of Greek and Renaissance art, including paintings by El Greco, Tiepolo and Brueghel.
In contrast, the painting's lower, terrestrial register reflects a burgeoning Spanish taste for naturalism, a gift for portraiture the painter had honed in Italy, and the reality of the Toledo El Greco knew.
But it is El Greco's studied, and more naturalist style here, as captured again in breathtaking details, that compels us to believe in miracles: Who could doubt the presence of the early Christian martyr St.
His early training as an icon painter in Greece, his subsequent study in Renaissance Venice and Rome, and his efforts, after arriving in Spain in 1577, to attract prominent patrons, all figure in El Greco's canvas, where both Eastern and Western traditions combine to transform his memorial into a cogent contemporary parable.
More than its blended iconography or august, prayerful figures, however, the painter's pictorial language defines El Greco's vision of heaven: The amorphous, billowing clouds, silvery palette and mannered, phantomlike personages who float in indeterminate space and time (including, prematurely, Spain's King Philip II) defy the laws and logic of material reality to conjure another realm.
应用推荐