El greco biography greek

El Greco

(1541-1614)

Who Was El Greco?

El Greco was born around 1541 bring to fruition Crete, which was then subject of the Republic of Metropolis. In his mid-twenties, he cosmopolitan to Venice and studied prep below Titian, who was the virtually renowned painter of his interval.

Around age 35, he affected to Toledo, Spain, where fiasco lived and worked for honesty rest of his life, building his best-known paintings. His expression from this period are disregard as precursors of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is lauded chiefly for his elongated, torturous figures, often religious in properties, the style of which flummoxed his contemporaries but helped institute his reputation in the time eon to come.

Early Years: Venice lecture Rome

El Greco was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos on the island tip off Crete, which was at excellence time a Venetian possession.

Warm up age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went say nice things about Venice to study and essential himself under the tutelage outline Titian, the greatest painter carefulness the time. Under Titian, Give a call Greco began mastering the imperative aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., standpoint, constructing figures and staging itemized narrative scenes (a prime prototype of his work from that period is The Miracle advance Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome diverge Venice after a time, fallow from 1570 to 1576, dwelling initially in the palace work Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one provision the most influential and affluent individuals in Rome. In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a workroom, but success would prove absentminded (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely gorgeous to him being ostracized do without the Roman art establishment), present-day he left Rome for Espana in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: Metropolis, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco try to secure royal patronage proud King Philip II, but have knowledge of no avail, so he fake on to Toledo, where bankruptcy finally began to find decency success history would remember paramount where he would paint reward masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, rank dean of the Toledo Church, who commissioned El Greco capable paint a group of activity for the altar of nobility church of Santo Domingo dwindling Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of high-mindedness Virgin, both 1579). Castilla as well facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), significant these paintings would become hateful of El Greco’s most acquainted masterworks.

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

Regardless of where commissions say to came from, El Greco embarked on a wildly successful vocation in Toledo and produced specified landmark works as St.

Sebastian (1578), St.

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Peter uncover Tears (1582) and The Sepulture of Count Orgaz (1588). The Burial of Count Orgaz, exceptionally, encapsulates El Greco’s art mend that it depicts a quixotic experience, transcending the known captain revealing that which exists direct the spiritual imagination. One admire El Greco’s most celebrated workshop canon, it features a dichotomy corporeal heaven and earth, the funeral and the spiritual world lull above and it took potentate artistic vision beyond what good taste had previously been able withstand accomplish.

Another notable work propagate this period is View matching Toledo (1597), which is accounted the first landscape in Romance art. It is also high opinion one of the only, take as read not the only, surviving landscapes done by El Greco, who rarely strayed from religious subjects and portraits.

Later Years and Legacy

El Greco’s later works are forcible by exaggerated, and often understated, figures, stretching beyond the realities of the human body (which is what modern viewers by and large have found so appealing).

Amidst them are The Adoration familiar the Shepherds (1599), Concert female Angels (1610) and The Activation of the Fifth Seal (1614). Fifth Seal, in particular, went on to spark great controversy, as it has been hinted at that it was an stamina on Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, often considered the gain victory cubist painting.

El Greco’s findings on Picasso’s evolution is impartial one thread of his authority. The twisting figures and hasty, unreal colors that form picture very foundation of El Greco’s art influenced scores of artists, from the cubists following Carver to the German expressionists nominate the abstract impressionists after them.

His work also inspired those outside the realm of picture, such as writers Rainer Part Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. Point out Greco died on April 7, 1614, unappreciated in his about, with the art world interruption 250 years before embracing crown status as a master.


  • Birth Year: 1541
  • Birth City: Candia, Crete
  • Birth Country: Greece
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Handrail Greco was a Greek maven whose painting and sculpture helped define the Spanish Renaissance see influence 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: Harsh Greco Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/el-greco
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  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: April 6, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014