|
Biography of El Greco
(1541-1614)
Movement: Mannerism
Cretan-born painter, Birth name is Doménikos Theotokópoulos, sculptor, and architect who settled in Spain and is regarded as the first great genius of the Spanish School.
Birth name Doménikos Theotokópoulos was known as he (the Greek), and it was thus that
the artist signed El Greco painting throughout his life,
always in Greek characters, and sometimes followed by Kres (Cretan). |
Little is known of his biography in youth, and only a few paintings by El Greco survive in the Byzantine tradition of icon painting,
notably the recently discovered Dormition of the Virgin (Church of the Koimesis tis Theotokou, Syros). In 1566
El Greco artist is referred to
in a Cretan document as a master painter; soon afterwards he went to
Venice (Crete was then a Venetian possession), then in 1570
moved to Rome. The miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whom artist El Greco met there, described him as a pupil of
Titian, but of all the
Venetian painters Tintoretto influenced him most, and
Michelangelo's impact on his development was also important.
Among the surviving paintings of El Greco in his Italian period are two works of the Purification of the Temple (Minneapolis Institute of
Arts, and NG, Washington), a much-repeated theme, and the portrait of Giulio Clovio (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). By 1577
El Greco was at Toledo, where he remained until his death, and it was there that he matured his
characteristic style in which figures elongated into flame-like forms and usually painted in cold, eerie, bluish colors
express intense religious feeling. The commission that took him to Toledo -- the high altarpiece of the church of S. Domingo
el Antiguo -- was gained through Diego de Castilla, Dean of Canons at Toledo Cathedral, whom
El Greco artist had met in Rome.
The central part of the El Greco art altarpiece, a 4-m. high canvas of The Assumption of the Virgin (Art Institute of Chicago, 1577), was easily
the biggest El Greco painting to date, but he carried off the dynamic composition triumphantly. A succession of great altarpieces followed
throughout his career, the two most famous being El Espolio (Christ Stripped of His Garments) (Toledo Cathedral, 1577-79) and
The Burial of Count Orgaz (S. Tomé, Toledo, 1586-88). These two mighty paintings
by El Greco convey the awesomeness of great spiritual events with a sense of mystic rapture,
and in his late oil painting El Greco went even further in freeing his figures from earth-bound restrictions; The
Adoration of the Shepherds (Prado, Madrid, 1612-1614), painted for his own tomb, is a prime example.
|
Toperfect Group