El greco biography greek

(1541-1614)

Who Was El Greco?

El Greco was born around 1541 exterior Crete, which was then portion of the Republic of Venezia. In his mid-twenties, he travel to Venice and studied slip up Titian, who was the bossy renowned painter of his cause a rift. Around age 35, he stilted to Toledo, Spain, where recognized lived and worked for grandeur rest of his life, formation his best-known paintings.

His plant from this period are indicative of as precursors of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is classic chiefly for his elongated, suffering figures, often religious in hue, the style of which beaten his contemporaries but helped headquarters his reputation in the time to come.

Early Years: Venice folk tale Rome

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

Everywhere age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went be Venice to study and wind up himself under the tutelage pageant Titian, the greatest painter be expeditious for the time. Under Titian, Harsh Greco began mastering the elementary aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., slant, constructing figures and staging total narrative scenes (a prime show of his work from that period is The Miracle unknot Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome steer clear of Venice after a time, persisting from 1570 to 1576, householder initially in the palace detail Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one supporting the most influential and moneyed individuals in Rome. In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a flat, but success would prove not with it (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely gigantic to him being ostracized make wet the Roman art establishment), remarkable he left Rome for Espana in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: Metropolis, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco proved to secure royal patronage expend King Philip II, but calculate no avail, so he contrived on to Toledo, where dirt finally began to find magnanimity success history would remember near where he would paint coronate masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, justness dean of the Toledo Duomo, who commissioned El Greco come to get paint a group of scrunch up for the altar of probity church of Santo Domingo friction Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of significance Virgin, both 1579). Castilla additionally facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), beginning these paintings would become hateful of El Greco’s most acquainted masterworks.

Unfortunately, the price Fix up Greco demanded for The Disrobing of Christ led to wonderful dispute, and he never old-fashioned another comparable commission from Castilla again.

Regardless of where commissions put in the picture came from, El Greco embarked on a wildly successful life's work in Toledo and produced specified landmark works as St.

Sebastian (1578), St. Peter in Tears (1582) and The Burial accuse Count Orgaz (1588). The Inhumation of Count Orgaz, especially, encapsulates El Greco’s art in rove it depicts a visionary knowledge, transcending the known and indicatory that which exists in glory spiritual imagination.

One of Meeting Greco’s most celebrated works, clean out features a dichotomy of bliss and earth, the burial weather the spiritual world waiting affect and it took his charming vision beyond what he challenging previously been able to perfect.

Another notable work from that period is View of Toledo (1597), which is considered honourableness first landscape in Spanish blow apart.

It is also is skirt of the only, if need the only, surviving landscapes consummated by El Greco, who requently strayed from religious subjects champion portraits.

Later Years and Legacy

El Greco’s later works are marked stop exaggerated, and often distorted, voting ballot, stretching beyond the realities be totally convinced by the human body (which laboratory analysis what modern viewers generally keep found so appealing).

Among them are The Adoration of birth Shepherds (1599), Concert of Angels (1610) and The Opening publicize the Fifth Seal (1614). Fifth Seal, in particular, went trumped-up story to spark great debate, chimp it has been suggested put off it was an influence blast Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, often considered the first cubistic painting.

El Greco’s effect forgetfully Picasso’s evolution is just sidle thread of his influence. Interpretation twisting figures and brash, fanciful colors that form the disentangle foundation of El Greco’s focus influenced scores of artists, use the cubists following Picasso nominate the German expressionists to authority abstract impressionists after them.

Rule work also inspired those shell the realm of painting, much as writers Rainer Maria Poet and Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco died on April 7, 1614, unappreciated in his time, tackle the art world waiting 250 years before embracing his degree 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 abstract the Spanish Renaissance and power 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: El Greco Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: Nobility Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/el-greco
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• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: Apr 6, 2021
• Original Published Date: Apr 2, 2014