Few artists among the Old Masters have produced works that are stunningly modern to contemporary eyes such as Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541-1614), a Greek transplant in the Iberian city of Toledo best known by its Spanish nickname El Greco.
Although associated with Mannerist painting, which upended the balance of proportion in the Renaissance and illusory space, it is nothing compared to El Greco’s Composite, whose brush marks, often broad and clearly visible, depicted the diluted forms that seemed to flicker like candles in The wind blows. He also tended to compress background and foreground, flattening his compositions into sweeping outlines.
Moreover, he often discarded the natural color, and added a bluish hue to the body, for example, while using the cloth to introduce areas of bold color that registered their contours more like zigzags than folds in the cloth. It is not surprising, then, to know that while El Greco’s work baffled some of his companions, he had a major influence on contemporary painters such as Picasso.
El Greco’s unique styles speak to the artistic traditions he absorbed to earn his unique position in the canon. He was born on the island of Crete when it belonged to the Venetian state known as the Kingdom of Candia. Like all Cretan artists, he was trained in the tradition of Byzantine iconography, which was distinguished by its elongated mundane formations and flat gilded backgrounds.
At the age of twenty-six, he left for Venice, where he met the work of Tintoretto, who was known as Il Furioso for his swift and daring brushwork. Moving then to Rome, where he crossed paths with the Mannerists, and finally to Spain, El Greco compiled the styles of the Byzantine, Venetian, and Roman schools to produce paintings before their time, they would not be fully appreciated for 300 years.
You will see for yourself on our tour of the masterpieces of El Greco.
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