Word: grecos
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Komsomolskaya Pravda called it "the Golden Thursday of Soviet Sport." During twelve gasping hours filled with 25 separate events-mostly such austere undertakings as Greco-Roman wrestling and long-horse vaulting-Russian Olympians won twelve gold medals and the U.S. none. With that, the race between the 16th Olympics' two chief contenders was over. By their grim gleaning of points in the final days, the Russian team gave the U.S. its first beating since 1936 in the overall mathematics of the Olympic Games...
TOWARD the end of the 16th century a strange, aloof figure - came to the Spanish hilltop town of Toledo. His origins were obscure, and his name-Domenikos Theotokopoulos-was so difficult that he was called simply El Greco (The Greek). He said he was born in Crete, boasted that he had been a student of Titian and, as one Toledo Spaniard recorded, "he let it be understood that nothing in the world was superior to his art." Certainly the stranger had at his brush tip not only Titian's designs but also all the secrets of Tintoretto...
...Greco. Toledo was an ideal city. Saint Theresa and St. John of the Cross were fellow citizens, and their visions made the miraculous an everyday occurrence. In such a time, Toledo found it easy to understand El Greco's inner vision, which triumphed over perspective and proportion to create his own soaring, flamelike dimensions of beauty and power...
Only in his declining years did luxury-loving El Greco's fortunes dwindle, and his regal apartments become threadbare and bleak. But in August 1612, El Greco, then 71, roused himself for a final great undertaking, the towering, 11½-ft. altarpiece, The Adoration of the Shepherds, painted to decorate his own tomb in the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo. In it, the Christ Child becomes a glowing pearl, illuminating with otherworldly radiance the three adoring shepherds and St. Joseph in his blue tunic and yellow cloak. Presiding over the scene that soars heavenward like a mighty Gloria...
Five years after El Greco's death at 73, his body was moved from Santo Domingo to another church, and then all trace of it was lost. In time the currents of taste turned against El Greco. The Santo Domingo Adoration was allowed to become so begrimed under centuries of neglect that few art historians noted or reproduced it. Last year the church, hard up to finance repairs, sold it to Madrid's Prado for $55,000. It took the Prado's experts nine months to clean and restore it. Today, the Adoration hangs in a place...