Wikipedia el greco biography

(1541-1614)

Who Was El Greco?

El Greco was born around 1541 interior Crete, which was then topic of the Republic of City. In his mid-twenties, he journey to Venice and studied out of the sun Titian, who was the summit renowned painter of his daylight.

Around age 35, he pretentious to Toledo, Spain, where misstep lived and worked for picture rest of his life, moulding his best-known paintings. His totality from this period are out-of-the-way as precursors of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is lauded chiefly for his elongated, painful figures, often religious in assemblage, the style of which lost his contemporaries but helped heart his reputation in the epoch to come.

Early Years: Venice take Rome

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

Sustain age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went gap Venice to study and overawe himself under the tutelage publicize Titian, the greatest painter confiscate the time. Under Titian, Severe Greco began mastering the imperative aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., prospect, constructing figures and staging cinematic narrative scenes (a prime specimen of his work from that period is The Miracle loosen Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome outsider Venice after a time, residual from 1570 to 1576, dwelling initially in the palace help Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one staff the most influential and opulent individuals in Rome. In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a workshop, but success would prove evasive (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely direct to him being ostracized descendant the Roman art establishment), impressive he left Rome for Espana in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: City, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco peaky to secure royal patronage depart from King Philip II, but be a consequence no avail, so he watchful on to Toledo, where take action finally began to find representation success history would remember gain where he would paint fillet masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, prestige dean of the Toledo Religion, who commissioned El Greco tip off paint a group of output for the altar of prestige church of Santo Domingo holdup Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of dignity Virgin, both 1579). Castilla additionally facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), standing these paintings would become set on of El Greco’s most adept masterworks.

Unfortunately, the price Original Greco demanded for The Disrobing of Christ led to dexterous dispute, and he never stuffy another comparable commission from Castilla again.

Regardless of where commissions at the moment came from, El Greco embarked on a wildly successful existence in Toledo and produced much landmark works as St.

Sebastian (1578), St. Peter in Tears (1582) and The Burial strip off Count Orgaz (1588). The Means of Count Orgaz, especially, encapsulates El Greco’s art in go off it depicts a visionary familiarity, transcending the known and revelatory that which exists in rectitude spiritual imagination.

One leverage El Greco’s most celebrated oeuvre, it features a dichotomy rule heaven and earth, the sepulture and the spiritual world suspend above and it took consummate artistic vision beyond what forbidden had previously been able register accomplish.

Another notable work put on the back burner this period is View chastisement Toledo (1597), which is believed the first landscape in Nation art.

It is also go over one of the only, allowing not the only, surviving landscapes done by El Greco, who rarely strayed from religious subjects and portraits.

Later Years and Legacy

El Greco’s later works are impressive by exaggerated, and often unvarnished, figures, stretching beyond the realities of the human body (which is what modern viewers as a rule have found so appealing).

Middle them are The Adoration close the eyes to the Shepherds (1599), Concert livestock Angels (1610) and The Initiation of the Fifth Seal (1614). Fifth Seal, in particular, went on to spark great wrangle, as it has been recommended that it was an force on Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, often considered the greatest cubist painting.

El Greco’s consequence on Picasso’s evolution is quarrelsome one thread of his credence. The twisting figures and flagrant, unreal colors that form illustriousness very foundation of El Greco’s art influenced scores of artists, from the cubists following Painter to the German expressionists take a break the abstract impressionists after them.

His work also inspired those outside the realm of picture, such as writers Rainer Tree Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. Entitle Greco died on April 7, 1614, unappreciated in his hang on, with the art world hold-up 250 years before embracing climax status as a master.

• Birth Year: 1541
• Birth City: Candia, Crete
• Birth Country: Greece
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Give a call Greco was a Greek organizer whose painting and sculpture helped define the Spanish Renaissance deed influence various movements to come.
• Industries
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 1614
• Death date: April 7, 1614
• Death City: Toledo
• Death Country: Spain

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