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Greco at Artprice. To look at auction records, find El Greco's
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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. The works of his Italian period are very different in style: Christ
Healing the Blind Man (1560s), The
Annunciation (1570-1575), Christ
Driving the Traders from the Temple (c.1570).
Around 1576, the painter went to Spain. At first he was in the
service
of Philip II: The
Dream of Philip II (1579). His Martyrdom
of St. Maurice (1580) did not appeal to Philip, and the
painter
moved to Toledo in 1580, the old capital and then a major center of
artistic,
intellectual, and religious life in 16th-century Spain. He stayed in
Toledo
until his death.
In 1586, he painted his famous The
Burial
of Count Orgaz (c.1586) for the church of St. Thomé,
the success of which brought him a great number of commissions from the
Church, the decoration of the new church of St. Domingo el Antiguo
among
them. He also became a popular portraitist: Portrait
of a Nobleman with His Hand on His Chest (c.1580). His
painting
style always gave rise to much discussion.
The life of proud and independent El Greco in Spain, who always signed
his pictures by his Greek name, demanded constant self-assertion. He
rented
the palace of Marquis Viliena (present Museum of El Greco in Toledo),
collected
a valuable library, was very successful in law suites against the
church
administration. Very brave in Catholic Spain was his union with a young
aristocrat Jeronima de las Cuevas, mother of his bastard son
Jorjé
Manuel, the future Spanish architect. ‘Man of eccentric habits and
ideas,
of tremendous determination, extraordinary reticence, and extreme
devoutness’
he was valued and respected by the intellectuals of Toledo. El
Greco
was buried in the Church of St. Thomé.
El Greco did not have followers, and his art was forgotten for 300
years.
The re-discovery of his painting was a sensation; he became one of the
most popular masters of the past, his painting rosed the interest of
collectors,
artists, lovers of art and art historians. El Greco is now regarded as
one of the most important representatives of European Mannerism.
Notes
Fray Felix Hortensio Paravicino
was an important scholar and poet, friend of El Greco, who praised El
Greco’s
genius in several sonnets.
See: El Greco. Portrait of Fray
Felix Hortensio Paravicino.
The devout Count Orgaz was
respected
greatly for piety in his native Toledo; according to local legend, St.
Augustine (on the right with miter and bishop’s cloak) and St. Stephen
(the young deacon on the left) came from heaven themselves to lay the
saintly
count in his grave. The faces of the dignified Spanish gentlemen are
clearly
portraits of the people, who surrounded El Greco. A label with ‘El
Greco
made me’ sticks out of the pocket of the small boy in front. Some
historians
think that it is an indication that the child is El Greco’s son.
See: El Greco. The Burial of
Count Orgaz.
Portrait of a Nobleman with
His Hand on His Chest. Many historians of art identify the sitter
as
Major Juan da Silva, Marquise de Monte, the head notary of Toledo.
See: El Greco. Portrait of a
Nobleman with His Hand on His Chest.
Portrait of a Cardinal.
The sitter is usually identified as Cardinal don Fernando Nino de
Guevera,
Grand Inquisitor and, from 1601, Archbishop of Seville.
See: El Greco. Portrait of a
Cardinal.
Bibliography:
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.