El Greco
El Greco, born Doménikos Theotokópoulos, was a Greek artist who lived from 1541 to 1614. He achieved fame for his part in the Spanish Renaissance, though art critics today say that his style is so unique that it belongs in not any one particular school.
El Greco was born in Crete in 1541 to a moderately wealthy family. During that time, Crete was part of the Republic of Venice, and the art of the day was deeply entrenched in the post-Byzantine style. In Crete, El Greco received his first artistic training as an icon painter. He found himself in a unique geographical position where the eastern art style met the western art style, and he was ultimately influenced by both sides. By 22 years of age, he was already an art master with his own workshop.
In 1567, El Greco moved to Venice where he studied the art of Titian, an older contemporary, and from whom he likely acquired his love of color. It was here that he was exposed to the Venetian Renaissance style of art. In 1570, El Greco made his way to Rome where he opened his own workshop. Italy provided him exposure to the Mannerism style of art, and it is here that he learned about the use of perspective and vanishing points.
In his art, El Greco took attributes of all the different styles he was exposed to but added his own unique individual style. He sought to distinguish himself from his contemporaries. Michelangelo had passed on by the time El Greco arrived in Rome, but he openly criticized the Italian master’s work. El Greco had said about Michelangelo that “he was a good man, but he did not know how to paint”. He had even offered to paint over the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. El Greco’s brazen outspokenness created some openly hostile relationships in Rome, so in 1577, he first moved to Madrid, and then Toledo, Spain. Toledo was the religious capital of Spain at the time, and El Greco would spend the rest of his life and produce his most well-known works here.
While in Spain, El Greco received numerous commissions for many of the larger institutions of this religious city, including churches and hospitals. El Greco is known for his extreme expressionist style of art in which he painted drama on the canvas. His figures were often painted elongated with ghost-like, yet bright coloring. He has said that color was the most important part of a painting.
Immediately after his death, El Greco’s reputation had fallen out of favor with the public favor. The Baroque style of art was becoming mainstream, and the public saw El Greco’s work as out of fashion with the stylistic elements of the early Baroque style. Only with the advent of the Romanticism style was El Greco’s work reevaluated. His work was inspirational for many artists of the Romantic movement, including Édouard Manet.
By the twentieth century, El Greco was fully appreciated again. His artistic style was a major influence on 20th century Expressionism and Cubism masters, including Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso. Picasso’s famed “Blue Period” was drawn upon from a direct influence of El Greco’s palette.
Back to the Artists page.
You can learn about different art movements here.
