The most unusual painter in 16th-century Europe, El Greco combined the strict Byzantine style of his homeland, Greece, with influences received during his studies in Venice and the medieval tradition of the country where he worked, Spain.
Domenicos Theotocopoulos, later called El Greco, the Greek, by the Spaniards, was born in Candia, on the island of Crete. Nothing is known of his parentage. He was trained as icon-maker in a monastery; he then went to Venice (soon after 1560), where Titian became his greatest mentor. El Greco, however, obtained very little influence from his master; but a certain influence of Bassano, Baroccio, Veronese, and Tintoretto could be felt but on the whole his works are very individual and distinct. In 1570, El Greco went by way of Parma (where he appreciated Correggio) to Rome, where he met Michelangelo. He criticized his Last Judgment severely, and offered to produce a better composition. But on the whole Michelangelo and the Central Italian Mannerists stimulated him.
1560s. Oil on panel. Alte Meister Gallerie, Dresden, Germany. Read Note.
Before 1570. Tempera on panel. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
c.1570. Oil on canvas. Museo e Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy.
1570-1575. Oil on canvas. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland. Read Note.
c.1570-1575. Oil on canvas. Private collection.
c.1570-1575. Oil on canvas. Private collection.
c.1570. Oil on panel. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA. Read Note.
c.1575. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
Oil on canvas. Szepmuveseti Muzeum, Budapest, Hungary. Read Note.
1577. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
c.1577. Oil on canvas. Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Read Note.
c.1577-1578. Oil on canvas. Cathedral Sacristy, Palencia, Spain. Read Note.
1577-1579. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA. Read Note.
1577-1579. Oil on canvas. Toledo Cathedral, Toledo, Spain. Read Note.
1579. Oil on canvas. Real Monasterio, Escorial, Spain.
c.1580. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
1580-82. Oil on canvas. Real Monasterio, Escorial, Spain. Read Note.
c.1580-1585. Oil on canvas. The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Couty Durham, UK. Read Note.
c.1580-1585. Oil on canvas. Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Read Note.
c. 1580-1585. Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
El Greco: Identity and Transformation by Jose Alvarez Lopera, N. Hadjinicolau, C. Strinati, Museo thys, J. Alvarez Lapera. Skira, 1999.
El Greco in Toledo by Fernando Marias. Scala Books, 2001.
El Greco: The Burial of Count Orgaz. by F. Calvo Serraller, Francisco Calvo Serraller. Thames & Hudson, 1995.
El Greco by David Davies, John H. Elliott. Yale University Press, 2003.
From El Greco to Goya: Painting in Spain 1561-1828 by Janis Tomlinson. Prentice Hall, 2003.
El Greco (Masters of Art) by Leo Bronstein. Harry N Abrams, 1990.
El Greco and His Patrons: Three Major Projects (Cambridge Studies in the History of Art) by Richard G. Mann, Francis Haskell (Editor), Nicholas Penn. Cambridge University Press, 1986.