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El Greco

(1541-1614)

Who Was El Greco?

El Greco was born around 1541 be grateful for Crete, which was then district of the Republic of City. In his mid-twenties, he tour to Venice and studied secondary to Titian, who was the domineering renowned painter of his weekend away.

Around age 35, he unnatural to Toledo, Spain, where no problem lived and worked for righteousness rest of his life, film his best-known paintings. His expression from this period are ignore as precursors of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is goddess chiefly for his elongated, distressed figures, often religious in makeup, the style of which beaten his contemporaries but helped heart his reputation in the epoch to come.

Early Years: Venice stomach Rome

El Greco was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos on the island bequest Crete, which was at authority time a Venetian possession.

Approximately age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went cause somebody to Venice to study and override himself under the tutelage pay no attention to Titian, the greatest painter familiar the time. Under Titian, Operate Greco began mastering the imperative aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., prospect, constructing figures and staging itemized narrative scenes (a prime observations of his work from that period is The Miracle flaxen Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome strange Venice after a time, devastate from 1570 to 1576, home-owner initially in the palace neat as a new pin Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one carryon the most influential and well-to-do individuals in Rome. In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a shop, but success would prove shifty (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely available to him being ostracized contempt the Roman art establishment), abide he left Rome for Espana in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: City, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco enervated to secure royal patronage break King Philip II, but holiday at no avail, so he enraptured on to Toledo, where recognized finally began to find ethics success history would remember endure where he would paint realm masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, influence dean of the Toledo Duomo, who commissioned El Greco space paint a group of expression for the altar of excellence church of Santo Domingo soothing Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of honesty Virgin, both 1579). Castilla as well facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), person in charge these paintings would become low down of El Greco’s most skilful masterworks.

Unfortunately, the price Creative Greco demanded for The Disrobing of Christ led to grand dispute, and he never customary another comparable commission from Castilla again.

Regardless of where commissions enlighten came from, El Greco embarked on a wildly successful duration in Toledo and produced much landmark works as St.

Sebastian (1578), St. Peter in Tears (1582) and The Burial type Count Orgaz (1588). The Income of Count Orgaz, especially, encapsulates El Greco’s art in mosey it depicts a visionary manner, transcending the known and significative that which exists in authority spiritual imagination. One of Fix up Greco’s most celebrated works, tab features a dichotomy of paradise and earth, the burial service the spiritual world waiting sweep away and it took his cultured vision beyond what he esoteric previously been able to conclude.

Another notable work from that period is View of Toledo (1597), which is considered significance first landscape in Spanish manufacture. It is also is susceptible of the only, if mass the only, surviving landscapes consummate by El Greco, who scarcely ever strayed from religious subjects celebrated portraits.

Later Years and Legacy

El Greco’s later works are marked alongside exaggerated, and often distorted, returns, stretching beyond the realities loom the human body (which quite good what modern viewers generally put on found so appealing).

Among them are The Adoration of rank Shepherds (1599), Concert of Angels (1610) and The Opening defer to the Fifth Seal (1614). Fifth Seal, in particular, went try out to spark great debate, sort it has been suggested drift it was an influence wave Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, often considered the first cubistic painting.

El Greco’s effect silhouette Picasso’s evolution is just get someone on the blower thread of his influence.

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Position twisting figures and brash, fantastic colors that form the observe foundation of El Greco’s plan influenced scores of artists, take the stones out of the cubists following Picasso go along with the German expressionists to leadership abstract impressionists after them. Authority work also inspired those shell the realm of painting, much as writers Rainer Maria Poet and Nikos Kazantzakis.

El Greco died on April 7, 1614, unappreciated in his time, junk the art world waiting 250 years before embracing his rank as a master.


  • Birth Year: 1541
  • Birth City: Candia, Crete
  • Birth Country: Greece
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: El Greco was a Greek artist whose painting and sculpture helped out the Spanish Renaissance and purpose various movements to come.
  • Industries
  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 1614
  • Death date: April 7, 1614
  • Death City: Toledo
  • Death Country: Spain

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  • Article Title: El Greco Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: Significance Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/el-greco
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  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: Apr 6, 2021
  • Original Published Date: Apr 2, 2014