Greco, El (1541–1614)
Greco, El (1541–1614)
A painter born as Domenikos Theotocopoulos on the island of Crete, and who made his home and career in Spain (thus the Spanish nickname El Greco, “the Greek”). At a young age he painted icons in the Byzantine style, and much of his later work reflects this training. He left Crete for Venice (of which Crete was then a colony), and after a few years moved to Rome, where he was influenced by the works of Titian, with whom he studied, as well as Tintoretto and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Some time in the 1570s he moved to the city of Toledo, Spain, where he had won a commission to paint an altarpiece for the church of Santo Domingo. The Assumption of the Virgin, a canvas 4 meters (13 feet) high, formed the central part of this work. This work gained him renown throughout Spain, and he was commissioned to create altarpieces for the Toledo cathedral and the church of San Tome. He created sculpture for church altars and painted portraits of nobles and church officials as well as a famous landscape, known as View of Toledo, that remains one of the best known paintings of his time. His elongated and rapturous figures are cast in a pale, luminous light. This unique and personal style was startlingly advanced for its day and had few imitators until the Expressionist school of painting developed in the twentieth century.