A few months ago I finished this collage, which I’m calling “Driving out the Money Changers.” The name is a reference to El Greco’s painting: “Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple,” to which I am clearly paying homage.
In my collage, I was pretending the figures in the El Greco painting were objects on a table in a still life. The figure of Christ reminded me of a beautiful curving pink pitcher, so I started there, and let myself play.
Here is the original El Greco painting:
“Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple” painting by El Greco, 1600 CE
So, what got me interested in this El Greco painting in the first place?
Well, he was never one of my favorite artists. I knew of him, of course, but I hadn’t really thought about him until two years ago. That’s when I received a private message on Instagram from another artist that I follow there, Louis Esposito. He was responding to a painting I had recently posted called “The Poem.”
“I love this!” Louis wrote to me. “I feel Redon, but I also feel Vuillard and Bonnard. But then the way the figure is framed I feel Balthus.”
Of course, you can imagine how thrilled I was to get such a message!
“That means so much to me,” I said.
“The Poem” painting by Lauren Kindle, 36 x 36 inches, 2022.
“Ah of course!” Louis said. He went on to say how my flowers reminded him of a figure from El Greco’s painting, “Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple.” He drew my attention to the female figure that was holding a basket.
“Ugh the way her body twists like the stem of a flower,” he wrote. “So good.”
I ended up making her a banana, not a flower…
But maybe in the next collage I’ll try a flower!
After that brief but uplifting Instagram exchange, I spent some time looking at the El Greco painting that Louis had mentioned. It really intrigued me. I thought all the shapes were interesting. I printed out a copy of the painting and stuck it in my sketchbook for inspiration.
Curious about what was going on in the painting, I looked up the Bible story. (You can find it in Matthew 21: 12-13.) The basic story is that people were doing business inside the temple itself. These people were money changers and also people selling animals for sacrifice. Anyway, Jesus was mad at them because they should have been doing their their business outside the temple court, not right inside the place of worship. He was so angry that he overturned the tables and benches and drove everyone out of the temple! He said his famous line:
“My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a ‘den of robbers'.’”
Jesus setting boundaries in the temple.
Eight months after my little Instagram conversation with Louis, I ended up doing an artist residency at the Mount Gretna School of Art for two weeks. It was a collage workshop with the artist Ken Kewley. That amazing workshop inspired me to make a collage that was in conversation with El Greco’s painting.
I clearly still had El Greco on my mind…
“Vessels in the Temple” painted paper collage by Lauren Kindle, Fall 2022
That one was my rough draft, and here’s the final collage one more time:
"Driving out the money changers (after El Greco)" painted paper collage by Lauren Kindle, 8 x 10 inches, 2024
I’m not an expert or Bible scholar or anything, but I certainly did think about that Bible story a lot while I was making my collage. I thought about what it means to have a place—a temple—that is so sacred that the marketplace cannot, or should not, exist within it. In terms of making art, that sacred place for me is my studio. So, maybe one of the things this story could be about, for me, is the importance of having a special place to do art where I don’t think about money. All thoughts like “will someone want to buy this painting?” need to be left outside of the studio door.
On another note, I’m so grateful for living in a world with other artists! I think it’s so wonderful that we can talk about our paintings together on the internet. I’m so grateful for Louis’s kind message two years ago, and for the way his comments sent my mind in a whole new direction, and inspired me to make something which I never would have made otherwise.
So, thank you Louis!
And we will end here with a beautiful painting by Louis Esposito:
“Cyprus Trees Next Door/ Afternoon Clouds” oil on canvas by Louis Esposito