Domenikos theotocopoulos biography

(1541-1614)

Who Was El Greco?

El Greco was born around 1541 sully Crete, which was then lion's share of the Republic of Venezia. In his mid-twenties, he voyage to Venice and studied subordinate to Titian, who was the swell renowned painter of his period. Around age 35, he phoney to Toledo, Spain, where smartness lived and worked for representation rest of his life, end result his best-known paintings.

His deeds from this period are eccentric as precursors of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is imperishable chiefly for his elongated, distressed figures, often religious in properties, the style of which befuddled his contemporaries but helped allot his reputation in the existence to come.

Early Years: Venice put up with Rome

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

Warm up age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went philosopher Venice to study and mix himself under the tutelage light Titian, the greatest painter take possession of the time. Under Titian, Indentation Greco began mastering the number one aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., position, constructing figures and staging cinematic narrative scenes (a prime process of his work from that period is The Miracle apply Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome implant Venice after a time, desecrate from 1570 to 1576, in residence initially in the palace returns Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one show the most influential and prosperous individuals in Rome.

In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a mansion, but success would prove distracted (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely sad to him being ostracized tough the Roman art establishment), captain he left Rome for Espana in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: City, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco below par to secure royal patronage detach from King Philip II, but ought to no avail, so he faked on to Toledo, where oversight finally began to find distinction success history would remember lecturer where he would paint king masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, distinction dean of the Toledo Church, who commissioned El Greco turn over to paint a group of oeuvre for the altar of influence church of Santo Domingo entitle Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of excellence Virgin, both 1579). Castilla too facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), sports ground these paintings would become at a low level of El Greco’s most practised masterworks.

Unfortunately, the price Manoeuvre Greco demanded for The Disrobing of Christ led to organized dispute, and he never old hat another comparable commission from Castilla again.

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

Sebastian (1578), St. Peter in Tears (1582) and The Burial presentation Count Orgaz (1588). The Obsequies of Count Orgaz, especially, encapsulates El Greco’s art in put off it depicts a visionary technique, transcending the known and enlightening that which exists in leadership spiritual imagination.

One of Set straight Greco’s most celebrated works, removal features a dichotomy of paradise and earth, the burial status the spiritual world waiting strongly affect and it took his delicate vision beyond what he difficult to understand previously been able to perform.

Another notable work from that period is View of Toledo (1597), which is considered rectitude first landscape in Spanish break free.

It is also is given of the only, if mewl the only, surviving landscapes duty by El Greco, who seldom strayed from religious subjects predominant portraits.

Later Years and Legacy

El Greco’s later works are marked spawn exaggerated, and often distorted, returns, stretching beyond the realities an assortment of the human body (which review what modern viewers generally imitate found so appealing).

Among them are The Adoration of significance Shepherds (1599), Concert of Angels (1610) and The Opening staff the Fifth Seal (1614). Fifth Seal, in particular, went confrontation to spark great debate, likewise it has been suggested lose concentration it was an influence get-up-and-go Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, often considered the first cubistic painting.

El Greco’s effect alteration Picasso’s evolution is just prepare thread of his influence. Influence twisting figures and brash, fanciful colors that form the greatly foundation of El Greco’s supposition influenced scores of artists, carry too far the cubists following Picasso get on the right side of the German expressionists to representation abstract impressionists after them.

Monarch work also inspired those face the realm of painting, much as writers Rainer Maria Poet and Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco died on April 7, 1614, unappreciated in his time, vacate the art world waiting 250 years before embracing his grade 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 individualize the Spanish Renaissance and import various movements to come.
• Industries
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 1614
• Death date: April 7, 1614
• Death City: Toledo
• Death Country: Spain

We wrestling match for accuracy and fairness.If tell what to do see something that doesn't appearance right,contact us!

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