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El Greco Biography
(1541-1614)
Cretan-born painter, sculptor, and
architect who settled in Spain and is
regarded as the first great genius of the
Spanish School. He was known as
he
(the Greek), but his real name was Domenikos
Theotocopoulos; and it was thus that El
Greco signed his paintings throughout his life,
always in Greek characters, and sometimes
followed by Kres (Cretan). |
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Little is known of his
youth, and only a few paintings survive by him
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 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 he 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 his Italian
period are two paintings 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 had met in Rome.
The central part of the altarpiece, a 4-m.
high canvas of The Assumption of the Virgin
(Art Institute of Chicago, 1577), was easily
his biggest work 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
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.
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