El Greco

El Greco
Occupation(s)	Painter, sculptor and architect

El Greco (probably combination of the Castilian and the Venetian language for "The Greek",^[α] 1541 – April 7, 1614) was a prominent painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He usually signed his paintings in Greek letters with his full name, Doménicos Theotocópoulos (Greek: Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος), underscoring his Greek descent. He was born in Crete, Republic of Venice, but travelled to Venice to study. In 1570 he moved to Rome where he opened his own workshop and executed a series of works. In 1577 El Greco emigrated to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until the end of his life.

El Greco developed into an artist so unique that he belongs to no conventional school. His dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but gained newfound appreciation in the 20th century. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western civilization. According to evidence from his time, Doménicos Greco acquired his name, not only for his place of origin, but also for the sublimity of his art: "Out of the great esteem he was held in he was called the Greek (il Greco)".^[b]

Early years and family

The Dormition of the Virgin (before 1567, tempera and gold on panel, 61,4 x 45 cm, Holy Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin, Hermoupolis, Syros) was probably created near the end of the artist's Cretan period. The painting combines post-Byzantine and Italian mannerist stylistic and iconographic elements.

Born in 1541 in either the village of Fodele or Candia (the Venetian name of Chandax, present day Herakleion) in Crete,^[c] El Greco descended from a prosperous urban Greek Orthodox family, which had probably been driven out of Chania to Candia after an uprising against the Venetians between 1526 and 1528. El Greco's father, Geórgios Theotocópoulos (d. 1556), was a merchant and tax collector. Nothing is known about his mother, nor is anything known about his first wife, a Greek; about his later companion, a Spaniard, there are mere speculations. El Greco's older brother, Manoússos Theotocópoulos (1531-December 13, 1604) was a wealthy merchant and spent the last years of his life (1603-1604) in El Greco's Toledo home.

El Greco received his initial training as an icon painter. In addition to painting, he studied the classics, ancient Greek, and Latin -- a fact confirmed by the large library he left upon his death in Toledo. He received this humanistic education in Candia, a city that blended both Eastern and Western cultures and a center for artistic activity, as evidenced by the two hundred painters active there in the sixteenth century who had organized guilds, based on the Italian model. In 1563, at the age of twenty-two, El Greco was described in a document as a "master" ("maestro Domenigo"), meaning he was already officially exercising the profession of painting. Three years later, in June 1566, as a witness to a contract, he signed his name as Master Menégos Theotocópoulos, painter (μαΐστρος Μένεγος Θεοτοκόπουλος σγουράφος).^[d]

Shortly before leaving Crete, El Greco may have converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. Some scholars, such as Lionello Puppi, read into this conversion a "profound spiritual agony" and a "suffering quest for religious truth".

In Italy

Portrait of Giorgio Giulio Clovio, the earliest surviving portrait from El Greco's hand (c. 1570, oil on canvas, 58 x 86 cm, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). In the portrait of Clovio, friend and supporter in Rome of the young Cretan artist, appears the first evidence of El Greco's gifts as a portraitist.

According to professor Harold E. Wethey because Crete was then a Venetian possession (the island came under Venetian sway as early as 1211), El Greco was a Venetian citizen, so it was natural that he would study in Venice. Though the exact year is not clear, most scholars agree that El Greco went to Venice around 1567.^[e] Knowledge of El Greco's years in Italy is limited. He lived in Venice until 1570 and, according to a letter of the Croatian miniaturist, Giulio Clovio, he entered the studio of Titian, who then in his nineties but still vigorous. Clovio characterized El Greco as "a rare talent in painting".

In 1571, a year after El Greco left Venice, his brother Manoussos settled there. El Greco moved to Rome where he executed a series of works strongly marked by his Venetian apprenticeship. It is unknown how long he remained in Rome, though he may have returned to Venice (c. 1575-76) before he left for Spain. In Rome, El Greco was received as a guest at the fabled palace of the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Palazzo Farnese), where the young Cretan painter came into contact with the intellectual circles of the city. He also associated with the Roman scholar Fulvio Orsini, whose collection included seven paintings by the artist (View of Mt. Sinai and a portrait of Clovio are among them).

Unlike other Cretan artists who had moved to Venice, El Greco substantially altered his style and sought to distinguish himself by inventing new and unusual interpretations of traditional religious subject matter. His works painted in Italy are influenced by the Venetian Renaissance style of the period, with agile, elongated figures reminiscent of Tintoretto and a chromatic framework that connects him to Titian. The Venetian painters also taught him to organize his multi-figured compositions in landscapes vibrant with atmospheric light. Clovio reports visiting El Greco on a summer's day while the artist was still in Rome. El Greco was sitting in a dark room, because he found the darkness more conducive to thought than the light of the day, which disturbed his "inner light". His stay in Rome also influenced his works with elements such as violent perspective vanishing points or strange attitudes struck by the figures with their repeated twisting and turning and tempestuous gestures; all elements of Mannerism.

While in Rome, El Greco dismissed Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel,^[f] while lavishing praise on Correggio and Parmigianino. According to Sethre, he despised Michelangelo's Judgement because "he wished to mirror the Incarnation by spiritualizing nature, not by crushing the heavens with physical things". Nevertheless, some modern scholars argue that Michelangelo's influence on El Greco's compositions was profound. London scholar Allan Braham asserts that, although El Greco reacted strongly against Michelangelo, he found it impossible to withstand his influence. According to Lizzie Boubli, El Greco's inventions in the Allegory of the Holy League "transfer part of the Last Judgement to a very different iconographic context".

Because of his artistic beliefs and personality, El Greco soon acquired enemies in Rome. Architect and writer Pietro Ligorio called him a "foolish foreigner", and newly discovered archival material reveals a skirmish with Farnese, who obliged the young artist to leave his palace. On July 6, 1572, the painter officially complained about this event. A few months later, on September 18, 1572, Dominico Greco paid his dues to the guild of St. Luke in Rome as a miniature painter. At the end of that year, El Greco opened his own workshop and hired as assistants the painters Lattanzio Bonastri de Lucignano and Francesco Prevoste.

In Spain

Emigration to Toledo

The Assumption of the Virgin (1577-1579, oil on canvas, 401 x 228 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago) was one of the nine paintings El Greco completed for the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo at El Escorial, his first commission in Spain.

In 1577, El Greco emigrated first to Madrid, then to Toledo, where he produced his mature works. At the time, Toledo was the religious capital of Spain^[g] and a populous city with "an illustrious past, a prosperous present and an uncertain future". In Rome, El Greco had earned the respect of some intellectuals, but was also facing the hostility of certain art critics. During that period, the construction of the palace of El Escorial was practically complete and Philip II of Spain issued an invitation to the artistic world of Italy to come and decorate it. Through Clovio and Orsini, El Greco met Benito Arias Montano, a Spanish humanist and delegate of Philip; Pedro Chacón, a clergyman; and Luis de Castilla, son of Diego de Castilla, the dean of the Cathedral of Toledo. El Greco's friendship with Castilla would secure his first large commissions in Toledo. In 1576, he signed contracts for a group of paintings that was to adorn the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo at El Escorial (42 km northwest of Madrid) and for the renowned El Espolio. By July 1577, he had arrived in Toledo, and by September 1579 he had completed nine paintings for Santo Domingo, including The Trinity and The Assumption of the Virgin. These works would establish the painter's reputation in Toledo.

El Greco did not plan to settle permanently in Toledo, since his final aim was to win the favor of Philip and make his mark in his court. Indeed, he did manage to secure two important commissions from the monarch: Allegory of the Holy League and Martyrdrom of St. Maurice. However, the king did not like these works and the contact with the court was not continued. Art professors Marina Lambraki-Plaka and Jonathan Brown believe that Philip did not care for the works of El Greco because they violated a basic rule of the Counter-Reformation, namely that in the image the content was paramount and not the style.

Mature works and later years

The Burial of Count Orgaz (1586-1588, oil on canvas, 480 x 360 cm, Santo Tomé, Toledo), now El Greco's best known work, illustrates a popular local legend. An exceptionally large painting, it is very clearly divided into two zones: the heavenly above and the terrestrial below. However there is little feeling of duality and the upper and lower zones are brought together compositionally

Lacking the favor of the king, El Greco was obliged to remain in Toledo where his fame was secure. Art historian Joseph Pijoan underscores that he "received in Toledo, from the very day of his arrival, the consecration of a great painter he had not had in Italy". According to Hortensio Félix Paravicino, a seventeenth century Spanish preacher and poet, "Crete gave him life and the painter’s craft, Toledo a better homeland, where through Death he began to achieve eternal life." In 1585, he appears to have hired an assistant, Italian painter Francesco Prevoste, and to have established a workshop capable of producing altar frames and statues as well as paintings. On March 12, 1586 he obtained the commission for The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, now his best known work. The decade 1597 to 1607 was a period of intense activity for El Greco. During this period, he received several major commissions and his workshop created pictorial and sculptural ensembles for a variety of religious institutions. Among his major commissions of this period were three altars for the Chapel of San José in Toledo (1597–99); three paintings (1596–1600) for the Colegio de Doña María de Aragon, an Augustinian monastery in Madrid and the high altar, four lateral altars, and the painting St. Ildefonso for the Capilla Mayor of the Hospital de la Caridad (Hospital of Charity) at Illescas (1603–05). The minutes concerning the commission of The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception(1607-1613), which were composed by the personnel of the municipality, describe El Greco as "one of the greatest men in both this kingdom and outside it".

By 1604, the number of rooms in his house had risen to twenty-four, suggesting a successful career. Between 1607-1608 El Greco was involved in a protracted legal dispute with the authorities of the Hospital of Charity at Illescas concerning payment for his work, which included painting, sculpture and architecture;^[h] this and other legal disputes contributed to the economic difficulties he experienced towards the end of his life. In 1608, he received his last major commission: one for the hospital of Saint John the Baptist in Toledo.

El Greco made Toledo his home. Surviving contracts mention him as the tenant from 1585 of a complex consisting of three apartments which belonged to the Marquis de Villena. The inventory of the household goods does not retain, however, the memory of a large house. It was in the apartments, which also served as his workshop, that he passed the rest of his life, painting and studying. It is not confirmed whether he lived with his Spanish female companion, Jerónima de Las Cuevas, whom he probably never married. She was the mother of his only son, Jorge Manuel (Γιωργής Μανουήλ), born in 1578.^[i] In 1604, Jorge Manuel and Alfonsa de los Morales gave birth to El Greco's grandson, Gabriel, who was baptized by Gregorio Angulo, governor of Toledo and personal friend of the artist.

In the course of the execution of a commission for the Hospital Tavera El Greco fell seriously ill and died after a month, on April 7, 1614. A few days earlier, on March 31, he had directed that his son should have the power to make his will. Two Greeks, friends of the painter, witnessed this last will and testament (El Greco never lost touch with his Greek origins). El Greco was buried in the Church of Santo Domingo el Antigua.

Art

The Opening of the Fifth Seal (1608-1614, oil, 225 x 193 cm., New York, Metropolitan Museum) has been suggested to be the prime source of inspiration for Picasso's Les Demoiselles d' Avignon.

File:Picasso Demoiselles.jpg Picasso's Les Demoiselles d' Avignon (1907, oil on canvas, 243.9 x 233.7 cm., New York, Museum of Modern Art) appears to have certain morphological and stylistical similarities with The Opening of the Fifth Seal.

Further information: Art of El Greco

El Greco worked as a painter, sculptor and architect and developed a unique style that puzzled his contemporaries but intrigued the artists and intellectuals during the 19th and the 20th century.

Re-evaluation of his art

El Greco was disdained by the immediate generations after his death because his work was opposed in many respects to the principles of the early baroque style which came to the fore near the beginning of the 17th century and soon supplanted the last surviving traits of the 16th century Mannerism. El Greco was deemed incomprehensible and had no important followers Only his son and a few unknown painters produced weak copies of his works. Later 17th and early 18th century Spanish commentators praised his skill but criticized his antinaturalistic style and his complex iconography. Some of these commentators, such as Acislo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco and Céan Bermúdez described his mature work as "contemptible", "ridiculous" and "worthy of scorn". The views of Palomino and Bermúdez were frequently repeated in Spanish historiography, adorned with terms such as "strange", "queer", "original", "eccentric" and "odd". The phrase "sunk in eccentricity", often encountered in such texts, in time became his "madness".^[k]

"In any case, only the execution counts. From this point of view, it is correct to say that Cubism has a Spanish origin and that I invented Cubism. We must look for the Spanish influence in Cézanne. Things themselves necessitate it, the influence of El Greco, a Venetian painter, on him. But his structure is Cubist."

Picasso speaking of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" to Dor de la Souchère in Antibes.

With the arrival of Romantic sentiments, El Greco's works were examined anew. To French writer Theophile Gautier, El Greco was the precursor of the European Romantic movement in all its craving for the strange and the exteme. The critic Zacharie Astruc and the scholar Paul Lefort helped to promote a widespread revival of interest in his painting. In the 1890's, Spanish painters then living in Paris adopted him as their guide and mentor.

In 1908, art historian Manuel Bartolomé Cossío published the first comprehensive catalogue of El Greco's works. The same year Julius Meier-Graefe, a scholar of French Impressionism, travelled in Spain and wrote down his experiences in The Spanische Reise, the first book which established El Greco as a great painter of the past. In El Greco's work, Meier-Graefe found foreshadowings of modernity. To the Blaue Reiter group in Munich in 1912, El Greco typified that mystical inner construction that it was the task of their generation to rediscover. To the English artist and critic Roger Fry in 1920, El Greco was the archetypal genius who did as he thought best "with complete indifference to what effect the right expression might have on the public". At the same period, some other researchers devoloped certain disputed theories. Doctors August Goldschmidt and Germán Beritens argued that El Greco painted such elongated human figures because he had vision problems (possibly progressive astigmatism or strabismus) that made him see bodies longer than they were, and at an angle to the perpendicular.^[j] English writer W. Somerset Maugham attributed El Greco's personal style to the artist's "latent homosexuality", and doctor Arturo Perera to the use of marijuana.

El Greco's re-evaluation was not limited to just scholarship. His expressiveness and colors influenced Eugène Delacroix and Édouard Manet. The first painter who appears to have noticed the structural code in the morphology of the mature El Greco was Paul Cézanne, one of the forerunners of cubism. Comparative morphological analyses of the two painters revealed their common elements, such as the distortion of the human body, the reddish and (in apppearance only) unworked backgrounds and the similarities in the rendering of space. According to Brown, "Cézanne and El Greco are spiritual brothers despite the centuries which separate them". Fry observed that Cézanne drew from "his great discovery of the permeation of every part of the design with a uniform and continuous plastic theme".

The symbolists, and Pablo Picasso during his blue period, drew on the cold tonality of El Greco, utilizing the anatomy of his ascetic figures. While Picasso was working on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, he visited his friend Ignacio Zuloaga in his studio in Paris and studied El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal (owned by Zuloaga since 1897). The relation between Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and the Opening of the Fifth Seal was pinpointed in the early 1980s, when the stylistic similarities and the relationship between the motifs of both works were analysed.

Portrait of Jorge Manuel Theotocopoulos (1600-1605, oil on canvas, 81 x 56 cm, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, Seville)

The Portrait of a Painter after El Greco (1950, oil on plywood, 100.5 x 81 cm, Angela Rosengart Collection, Lucerne) is Picasso's version of the Portrait of Jorge Manuel Theotocopoulos.

The early cubist explorations of Picasso were to uncover other aspects in the work of El Greco: structural analysis of his compositions, multi-faced refraction of form, interweaving of form and space, and special effects of highlights. Several traits of cubism, such as distortions and the materialistic rendering of time, have their analogies in El Greco's work. According to Picasso, El Greco's structure is cubist. In February 22, 1950, Picasso began his series of "paraphrases" of other painters' works with The Portrait of a Painter after El Greco. Foundoulaki asserts that Picasso "completed ... the process for the activation of the painterly values of El Greco which had been started by Manet and carried on by Cézanne".

The expressionists focused on the expressive distortions of El Greco. According to Franz Marc, one of the principal painters of the German expressionist movement, "we refer with pleasure and with steadfastness to the case of El Greco, because the glory of this painter is closely tied to the evolution of our new perceptions on art". Jackson Pollock, a major force in the abstract expressionist movement, was also influenced by El Greco. By 1943, Pollock had completed sixty drawing compositions after El Greco and owned three books on the Cretan master.

Contemporary artists are also inspired by El Greco's art. Kysa Johnson used El Greco's paintings of the Immaculate Conception as the compositional framework for some of her works, and the master's anatomical distortions are somewhat reflected in Fritz Chesnut's portraits.

Technique and style

The primacy of the imagination over the subjective character of creation was a fundamental principle of El Greco's style. According to Lambraki-Plaka "intuition and the judgement of the eye are the painter's surest guide". El Greco discarded classicist criteria such as measure and proportion. He believed that grace is the supreme quest of art. But the painter achieves grace only if he manages to solve the most complex problems with obvious ease.

"I hold the imitation of color to be the greatest difficulty of art."

El Greco (notes of the painter in one of his commentaries)

El Greco regarded color as the most important and the most ungovernable element of painting. He declared that color had primacy over drawing; thus his opinion on Michelangelo was that "he was a good man, but he did not know how to paint". Francisco Pacheco, a painter and theoretician who visited El Greco in 1611, underscored that the painter liked "the colors crude and unblent in great blots as a boastful display of his dexterity" and that "he believed in constant repainting and retouching in order to make the broad masses tell flat as in nature".

File:The Spoliation - el greco.jpg

The Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio) (1577-79, oil on canvas, 285 x 173 cm, Sacristy of the Cathedral, Toledo) is one of the most famous altarpieces of El Greco. El Greco's altarpieces are renowned for their dynamic compositions and startling innovations.

Art historian Max Dvořák was the first scholar to connect El Greco's art with Mannerism and Antinaturalism. Modern scholars characterize El Greco's theory as "typically Mannerist" and pinpoint its sources in the Neo-Platonism of the Renaissance. According to Brown, the painter endeavored to create a sophisticated form of art. Nicholas Penny, senior curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, asserts that "once in Spain, El Greco was able to create a style of his own -- one that disavowed most of the descriptive ambitions of painting".

In his mature works El Greco demonstrated a characteristic tendency to dramatize rather than to describe. The strong spiritual emotion transfers from painting directly to the audience. According to Pacheco, El Greco's perturbed, violent and at times seemingly careless-in-execution art was due to a studied effort to acquire a freedom of style. The preference of El Greco for very tall and slender figures and elongated compositions, which served both the expressive purposes and the aesthetic principles of the master, led him to disregard the laws of nature and elongate his compositions more and more, particularly when they were destined for altarpieces. The anatomy of the human body becomes even more otherwordly in the painter's mature works; for The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception El Greco asked to lengthen the altarpiece itself by another 1.5 feet "because in this way the form will be perfect and not reduced, which is the worst thing that can happen to a figure'". A significant innovation of El Greco's mature works is the interweaving between form and space; a reciprocal relationship is developed between them which completely unifies the painting surface. This interweaving would re-emerge three centuries later in Cézanne's and Picasso's works.

Another characteristic of El Greco's mature style is the use of light. As Brown notes, "each figure seems to carry its own light within or reflects the light that emanates from an unseen source". Fernando Marias and Agustín Bustamante García, the scholars who transcribed El Greco's handwritten notes, connect the power that the painter gives to light with the ideas underlying Christian Neo-Platonism. Professor Nicos Hadjinicolaou notes the manner in which El Greco could adjust his style in accordance with his surroundings and stresses the importance of Toledo for the complete development of El Greco's mature style.

File:Greco Trinity.jpeg

The Holy Trinity (1577-1579, 300 x 178 cm, oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain) was part of a group of works created for the church "Santo Domingo el Antiguo".

Wethey asserts that "although Greek by descent and Italian by artistic preparation, the artist became so immersed in the religious environment of Spain that he became the most vital visual representative of Spanish mysticism". The same scholar believes that in El Greco's mature works "the devotional intensity of mood reflects the religious spirit of Roman Catholic Spain in the period of the Counter-Reformation".

El Greco excelled also as a portraitist, who was able not only to record a sitter's features but to convey his character. Although he was primarily a painter of religious subjects, his portraits, though less numerous, are equally high in quality. Wethey says that "by such simple means, the artist created a memorable characterization that places him in the highest rank as a portraitist, along with Titian and Rembrandt".

Suggested Byzantine affinities

During the first half of the 20th century some scholars developed certain theories concerning the Byzantine origins of El Greco's style. Professor Angelo Procopiou had asserted that, although El Greco belongs to Mannerism, his roots were firmly in the Byzantine tradition. According to art historian Robert Byron "all Greco's most individual characteristics, which have so puzzled and dismayed his critics, derive directly from the art of his ancestors". On the other hand, Cossío had argued that Byzantine art could not be related to El Greco's later work.

The discovery of the Dormition of the Virgin on Syros, an authentic and signed work from the painter's Cretan period and the extensive archival research in the early 1960s contributed to the rekindling and reassessment of these theories. Significant scholarly works of the second half of the 20th century devoted to El Greco reappraise many of the various interpretations of him, including his supposed Byzantinism. Based on the notes written in El Greco's own hand and on his unique style, they see an organic continuity between Byzantine painting and his art. German art historian August L. Mayer argues that the artist "remained a Greek reflecting vividly the Oriental side of Byzantine culture ... The fact that he signed his name in Greek characters is no mere accident". In this judgement, Mayer disagrees with Oxford University professors, Cyril Mango and Elizabeth Jeffreys, who assert that "despite claims to the contrary, the only Byzantine element of his famous paintings was his signature in Greek lettering". Hadjinicolaou states that from 1570 on the master's painting is "neither Byzantine nor post-Byzantine but Western European. The works he produced in Italy belong to the history of the Italian art, and those he produced in Spain to the history of Spanish art".

The English art historian David Davies seeks the roots of El Greco's style in the intellectual sources of his Greek-Christian education and in the world of his recollections from the liturgical and ceremonial aspect of the Orthodox Church. Davies believes that the religious climate of the Counter-Reformation and the aesthetics of mannerism acted as catalysts to activate his individual technique. He asserts that the philosophies of Platonism and ancient Neo-Platonism, the works of Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and the texts of the Church fathers and the liturgy offer the keys to the understanding of El Greco's style.

Summarizing the ensuing schorarly debate on this issue, José Álvarez Lopera, curator at the Museo del Prado, concludes that the presence of "byzantine memories" is obvious in El Greco's mature works, though there are still some obscure issues about El Greco's Byzantine origins needing further illumination. According to Lambraki-Plaka "far from the influence of Italy, in a neutral place which was intellectually similar to his birthplace, Candia, the Byzantine elements of his education emerged and played a catalytic role in the new conception of the image which is presented to us in his mature work".

Architecture and sculpture

El Greco in his lifetime was highly esteemed as an architect and sculptor. He usually designed complete altar compositions, working as architect and sculptor as well as painter, for instance at the Hospital de la Caridad. There he decorated the chapel of the hospital, but the wooden altar and the sculptures he executed have in all probability perished. For Espolio the master designed the original altar of gilded wood which has been destroyed, but his small sculptured group of the Miracle of St. Ildefonso still survives on the lower centre of the frame.

"I would not be happy to see a beautiful, well-proportioned woman, no matter from which point of view, however extravagant, not only lose her beauty in order to, I would say, increase in size according to the law of vision, but no longer appear beautiful, and, in fact, become monstrous."

El Greco (marginalia the painter inscribed in his copy of Daniele Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius)

His most important architectural achievement was the church and Monastery of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, for which he also executed sculptures and paintings. El Greco is regarded as a painter who incorporated architecture in his painting. He is also credited with the architectural frames to his own paintings in Toledo. Pacheco charecterized him as "a writer of painting, sculpture and architecture".

In the marginalia El Greco inscribed in his copy of Daniele Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius' De Architectura, he refuted Vitruvius' attachment to archaeological remains, canonical proportions, perspective and mathematics. He also saw Vitruvius's manner of distorting proportions in order to compensate for distance from the eye as responsible for creating monstrous forms. El Greco was averse to the very idea of rules in architecture; he believed above all in the freedom of invention and defended novelty, variety, and complexity. These ideas were, however, far too extreme for the architectural circles of his era and had no immediate resonance.

Artistic reputation

It was a great moment. A pure righteous conscience stood on one tray of the balance, an empire on the other, and it was you, man's conscience, that tipped the scales. This conscience will be able to stand before the Lord as the Last Judgement and not be judged. It will judge, because human dignity, purity and valor fill even God with terror ... Art is not submission and rules, but a demon which smashes the moulds ... Greco's inner-archangel's breast had thrust him on savage freedom's single hope, this world's most excellent garret.

— Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

Michael Kimmelman, a reviewer for The New York Times, stated that "to Greeks [El Greco] became the quintessential Greek painter; to the Spanish, the quintessential Spaniard". According to Lambraki-Plaka, El Greco is not loved just by experts and art lovers but also by ordinary people, as was proved by the campaign to raise the funds for the purchase of Saint Peter, a painting by the Cretan master. Epitomizing the general consensus of El Greco's impact, Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, said in April 1980 that El Greco was "the most extraordinary painter that ever came along back then" and that he was "maybe three or four centuries ahead of his time". Wethey asserts that El Greco "developed into an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school but is a lonely genius of unprecedented emotional power and imagination". Fry described El Greco as "an old master who is not merely modern, but actually appears a good many steps ahead of us, turning back to show us the way". According to Foundoulaki, "painters and theoriticians from the beginning of the 20th century 'discovered' a new El Greco but in process they also discovered and revealed their own selves". These are the words Meier-Graefe used to describe El Greco's impact on the artistic movements of his time:

"As I was climbing the narrow, rain-slicked lane -nearly three hundred years have gone by- I felt myself seized by the hand of a Powerful Friend and indeed I came to see myself lifted on the two enormous wings of Doménicos up to his skies which this time were full of orange trees and water speaking of the homeland."

–Odysseas Elytis, Diary of an Unseen April

"He [El Greco] has discovered a realm of new possibilities. Not even he, himself, was able to exhaust them. All the generations that follow after him live in his realm. There is a greater difference between him and Titian, his master, than between him and Renoir or Cézanne. Nevertheless, Renoir and Cézanne are masters of impeccable originality because it is not possible to avail yourself of El Greco's language, if in using it, it is not invented again and again, by the user."

El Greco's personality and work were a source of inspiration for many writers and artists of the last centuries, including poet Rainer Maria Rilke. One set of Rilke's poems (Himmelfahrt Mariae I.II., 1913) was based directly on El Greco's Immaculate Conception. Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, who felt a great spiritual affinity for El Greco, called his autobiography Report to Greco and wrote a tribute to the Cretan-born artist.

In 1998, the Greek electronic composer and artist Vangelis published El Greco, a symphonic album inspired by El Greco. This album is an expansion of an earlier album by Vangelis, Foros Timis Ston Greco (A Tribute to El Greco, Greek: Φόρος Τιμής Στον Γκρέκο). The life of the Cretan-born artist is to be the subject of an ambitious Greek-Spanish film. Directed by Yannis Smaragdis, the film began shooting on the island of Crete; British actor Nick Ashdon has been cast to play the artist at the age of 27.

Works

The Modena Triptych (1568, tempera on panel, 37 x 23,8 cm (central), 24 x 18 cm (side panels), Galleria Estense, Modena) is a small-scale composition attributed to El Greco .

Further information: Works of El Greco

According to Robin Cormack, Professor Emeritus in the History of Art at the University of London, and Maria Vassilaki, Associate Professor in Byzantine Art History at the University of Thessaly, "the assessment of the work of El Greco, perhaps more than that of any other artist, has been subject to the swings of fashion". In 1937 a highly influential study by art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini had the effect of greatly increasing the number of accepted works of El Greco. Palluchini attributed to El Greco a small triptych in the Galleria Estense at Modena on the basis of a signature on the painting on the back of the central panel on the Modena triptych ("Χείρ Δομήνιχου", Created by the hand of Doménicos). There was consensus that the triptych was indeed an early work of El Greco and, therefore, Pallucchini's publication became the yardstick for attributions to the artist. Nevertheless, Wethey denied that the Modena triptych had any connection at all with the artist and produced a reactive catalogue raisonné with a greatly reduced corpus of materials in 1962. Whereas art historian José Camón Aznar had attributed between 787 and 829 paintings to the Cretan master, Wethey reduced the number to 285 authentic works and Halldor Sœhner, a German researcher of Spanish art, recognized only 137. Wethey and other scholars rejected the notion that Crete took any part in his formation and supported the elimination of a series of works from El Greco's oeuvre.

«Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος (Doménicos Theotocópoulos) ἐποία». The words El Greco used to sign his paintings. El Greco appended after his name the word "epoia" (ἐποία, he made it). In The Assumption the painter used the word "deixas" (δείξας, he displayed it) instead of "epoia".

Since 1962 the discovery of the Dormition and the extensive archival research has gradually convinced scholars that Wethey's assessments were not entirely correct, and that his catalogue decisions may have distorted the whole nature of El Greco's origins, development and oeuvre. The discovery of the Dormition led to the attributions of three other signed works of "Doménicos" to El Greco (Modena Triptych,St. Luke Painting the Virgin and Child and The Adoration of the Magi) and then to the acceptance as authentic of more works, some signed, some not, which were brought into the group of early works of El Greco. El Greco is now seen as an artist with a formative training on Crete; a series of works illuminate the style of early El Greco, some painted while he was still in Crete, some from his period in Venice, and some from his subsequent stay in Rome. Even Wethey accepted that "he [El Greco] probably had painted the little and much disputed triptych in the Galleria Estense at Modena before he left Crete". Nevertheless, certain disputes over the exact number of El Greco's authentic works remain unresolved, and the status of Wethey's (still highly esteemed) catalogue is at the centre of these disagreements.

A few sculptures, including Epimetheus and Pandora, have been attributed to El Greco. This doubtful attribution is based on the testimony of Pacheco. There are also four drawings among the surviving works of the master; three of them are preparatory works for the altarpiece of Santo Domingo el Antiguo and the fourth is a study for one of his paintings, The Crucifixion.

Notes

Timeline of El Greco's life (1541 – April 7, 1614)

Timeline of El Greco's life (1541–7 April 1614)

a. ^{^} Theotocópoulos acquired the name "El Greco" in Italy, where the custom of identifying a man by designating a country or city of origin was a common practice. The curious form of the article (El) may be the Venetian dialect or more likely from the Spanish, though in Spanish his name would be "El Griego"). The Cretan master was generally known in Italy and Spain as Dominico Greco, and was called only after his death El Greco.

b. ^{^} Comment of Giulio Cesare Mancini about El Greco in his Chronicles (written a few years after El Greco's death).

c. ^{^} There is an ongoing dispute about El Greco's birthplace. Most researchers and scholars give Candia as his birthplace. Nonetheless, according to Achileus A. Kyrou, a prominent Greek journalist of the 20th century, El Greco was born in Fodele and the ruins of his family's house are still extant in the place where old Fodele was (the village later changed location because of the raids of the pirates). Candia's claim to him is based on two documents from a trial in 1606, when the painter was 65, stating his place of birth as Candia. Fodele natives argue that the painter probably told everyone in Spain he was from Heraklion because it was the closest known city next to tiny Fodele

d. ^{^} This document comes from the notarial archives of Candia and was published in 1962. Menegos is the Venetian dialect form of Doménicos, and Sgourafos (σγουράφος=ζωγράφος) is a Greek term for painter.

e. ^{^} According to archival research in the late 1990s, El Greco was still in Candia at the age of twenty-six. It was there where his works, created in the spirit of the post-Byzantine painters of the Cretan School, were greatly esteemed. On December 26, 1566 El Greco sought permission from the Venetian authorities to sell a "panel of the Passion of Christ executed on a gold background" ("un quadro della Passione del Nostro Signor Giesu Christo, dorato") in a lottery. The Byzantine icon by young Doménicos depicting the Passion of Christ, painted on a gold ground, was appraised and sold on December 27 1566 in Candia for the agreed price of seventy gold ducats (The panel was valued by two artists; one of them was icon-painter Georgios Klontzas. One valuation was eighty ducats and the other seventy), equal in value to a work by Titian or Tintoretto of that period. Therefore, it seems that El Greco traveled to Venice sometime after December 27, 1566. In one of his last articles, Wethey reassessed his previous estimations and accepted that El Greco left Crete in 1567. According to other archival material -- drawings El Greco sent to a Cretan cartographer -- he was in Venice by 1568.

f. ^{^} Mancini reports that El Greco extended an offer to Pope Pius V to paint over Michelangelo's Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

g. ^{^} Toledo must have been one of the largest cities in Europe during this period. In 1571 the population of the city was 62,000.

h. ^{^} El Greco signed the contract for the decoration of the high altar of the church of the Hospital of Charity on June 18, 1603. El Greco agreed to finish the work by August of the following year. Although such deadlines were seldom met, it was a point of potential conflict. He also agreed to allow the brotherhood to select the appraisers. The brotherhood took advatage of this act of good faith and did not wish to arrive at a fair settlement. Finally, El Greco assigned his legal represention to Prevoste and a friend of him, Francisco Ximénez Montero, and accepted a payment of 2,093 ducats.

i. ^{^} Doña Jerónima de Las Cuevas appears to have outlived El Greco, and, although the master acknowledged both her and his son, he never married her. That fact has puzzled researchers, because he mentioned her in various documents, including his last testament. Most analysts assume that El Greco had married unhappily in his youth and therefore could not legalize another attachment.

j. ^{^} This theory enjoyed surprising popularity during the early years of the twentieth century and was opposed by the German psychologist David Kuntz.. Whether or not El Greco had progressive astigmatism is still open to debate. Stuart Anstis, Professor at the University of California (Department of Psychology) concludes that "even if El Greco were astigmatic, he would have adapted to it, and his figures, whether drawn from memory or life, would have had normal proportions. His elongations were an artistic expression, not a visual symptom." According to Professor of Spanish John Armstrong Crow, "astigmatism could never give quality to a canvas, nor talent to a dunce".

k. ^{^} The myth of El Greco's madness came in two versions. On the one hand, Théophile Gautier, a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic, believed that El Greco went mad from excessive artistic sensitivity. On the other hand, the public and the critics would not possess the ideological criteria of Gautier and would retain the image of El Greco as a "mad painter" and, therefore, his "maddest" paintings were not admired but considered to be historical documents proving his "madness".

References

Printed sources (books and articles)

• Acton, Mary (1991). Learning to Look at Paintings. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-52140-107-0.
• Allardyce, Isabel (2003). "Our Lady of Charity, at Illescas". Historic Shrines of Spain 1912. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-76613-621-3.
• Álvarez Lopera, José (2005). "El Greco: From Crete to Toledo (translated in Greek by Sofia Giannetsou)". in M. Tazartes' "El Greco". Explorer. ISBN 9-60794-583-2.
• Anstis, Stuart (2002). "Was El Greco Astigmatic" (PDF). "Leonardo". 35 (No.2): 208. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Arslan, Edoardo (1964). "Cronisteria del Greco Madonnero". "Commentari". xv (No.5): 213–231. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Boubli, Lizzie (2003). "Michelangelo and Spain: on the Dissemination of his Draugthmanship". Reactions to the Master edited by Francis Ames-Lewis and Paul Joannides. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 0-75460-807-7.
• Braham, Allan (June 1966). "Two Notes on El Greco and Michelangelo". "Burlington Magazine". 108 (No.759). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 307–310. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Brown, Jonathan (1982). "El Greco and Toledo". El Greco of Toledo (catalogue). Little Brown. ASIN B-000H4-58C-Y.
• Brown, Jonathan (1982). "El Greco, the Man and the Myth". El Greco of Toledo (catalogue). Little Brown. ASIN B-000H4-58C-Y.
• Brown Jonathan, Kagan Richard L. (1982). "View of Toledo". "Studies in the History of Art". 11: 19–30.
• Brown Jonathan, Mann Richard G. (1997). "Tone". Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-41514-889-8.
• Cossío, Manuel Bartolomé (1908). El Greco (in Spanish). Victoriano Suárez, Madrid.
• Byron, Robert (October 1929). "Greco: The Epilogue to Byzantine Culture". "Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs". 55 (No.319). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 160–174. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Constantoudaki, M. (1975–1976). "D. Theotocópoulos, from Candia to Venice (in Greek)". "Bulletin of the Christian Archeological Society". 8 (period IV): 55–71.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
• Crow, John Armstrong (1985). "The Fine Arts - End of the Golden Age". Spain: The Root and the Flower. University of California Press. ISBN 0-52005-133-5.
• "Greco, El". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002.
• Davies, David (1990). "The Byzantine Legacy in the Art of El Greco". El Greco of Crete (proceedings) edited by Nicos Hadjinicolaou. Herakleion.
• Davies, David (1990). "The Influence of Christian Neo-Platonism on the Art of El Greco". El Greco of Crete (proceedings) edited by Nicos Hadjinicolaou. Herakleion.
• Engass Robert, Brown Jonathan (1992). "Artistic Practice - El Greco versus the Hospital od Charity, Illescas". Italian and Spanish Art, 1600-1750. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-81011-065-2.
• Fernádez, Francisco de San Román (1927). "De la VIda del Greco - Nueva Serie de Documentos Inéditos". "Archivo Español del Arte y Arqueologia". 8: 172–184.
• Foundoulaki, Efi (1992). "From El Greco to Cézanne". From El Greco to Cézanne (catalogue). National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum.
• Foundoulaki, Efi (24 August 1990). "Reading El Greco through Manet (in Greek)". "Anti" (No.445): 40–47. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Gautier, Théophile (1981). "Chapitre X". Voyage en Espagne (in French). Gallimard-Jeunesse. ISBN 2-07037-295-2.
• Grierson, Ian (2000). "Who am Eye". The Eye Book. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-755-7.
• Griffith, William (2005). "El Greco". Great Painters and Their Famous Bible Pictures. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1-41790-608-1.
• Gudiol, José (1973). Doménicos Theotocópoulos, El Greco, 1541-1614. Viking Press. ASIN B-0006C-8T6-E.
• Hadjinicolaou, Nicos (1990). "Doménicos Theotocópoulos, 450 Years from his Birth". El Greco of Crete (proceedings) edited by Nicos Hadjinicolaou. Herakleion.
• Hadjinicolaou, Nicos (1994). "Inequalities in the work of Theotocópoulos and the Problems of their Interpretation". Meanings of the Image edited by Nicos Hadjinicolaou (in Greek). University of Crete. ISBN 9-60730-965-0.
• Harris, Enriquetta (April 1938). "A Decorative Scheme by El Greco". "Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs". 72 (No.421). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 154-155+157-159+162-164. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Helm, Robert Meredith (2001). "The Neoplatonic Tradition in the Art of El Greco". Neoplatonism and Western Aesthetics edited by Aphrodite Alexandrakis and Nicholas J. Moutafakis. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-79145-279-4.
• Hispanic Society of America (1927). El Greco in the Collection of the Hispanic Society of America. Printed by order of the trustees.
• Johnson, Ron (October 1980). "Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon" and the Theatre of the Absurd". "Arts Magazine". V (No.2): 102–113. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Kandinsky Wassily, Marc Franz (1987). L'Almanach du "Blaue Reiter". Klincksieck. ISBN 2-25202-567-0.
• Lambraki-Plaka, Marina (1999). El Greco-The Greek. Kastaniotis. ISBN 9-60032-544-8.
• Lambraki-Plaka, Marina (19 April 1987). "El Greco, the Puzzle. Doménicos Theotocópoulos today". "To Vima".
• Lambraki-Plaka, Marina (1992). "From El Greco to Cézanne (An "Imaginary Museum" with Masterpieces of Three Centuries)". From El Greco to Cézanne (catalogue). National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum.
• Landon, A.E. (2003). Reincarnation Magazine 1925. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-76613-775-9.
• Lefaivre Liane, Tzonis Alexander (2003). "El Greco (Domenico Theotocopoulos)". El Greco-The Greek. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-41526-025-6.
• Mango Cyril, Jeffreys Elizabeth (2002). "Towards a Franco-Greek Culture". The Oxford History of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19814-098-3.
• Mann, Richard G. (2002). "Tradition and Originality in El Greco's Work" (PDF). "Journal of the Rocky Mountain". 23. The Medieval and Renaissance Association: 83–110.
• Marias, Fernando (1999). "El Greco's Artistic Thought". El Greco, Identity and Transformation edited by Alvarez Lopera. Skira. ISBN 8-88118-474-5.
• Marias Fernando, Bustamante García Agustín (1981). Las Ideas Artísticas de El Greco (in Spanish). Cátedra. ISBN 8-43760-263-7.
• Mayer, Aygust L. (June 1929). "El Greco - An Oriental Artist". "Art Bulletin". 11 (No.2). College Art Association: 146–152. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Mayer, Aygust L. (Januar 1939). "Notes on the Early El Greco". "Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs". 74 (No.430). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 28-29+32-33. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Meier-Graefe, Julius (1926). The Spanish Journey (translated form German by J. Holroyd-Reece). Jonathan Cape, London.
• Mertzios, K.D. (1961–1962). "Selections of the Registers of the Cretan Notary Michael Maras (1538-1578) (in Greek)". "Cretan Chronicles". 2 (No.15-16): 55–71. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
• Nagvi-Peters, Fatima (22 September 1997). " A Turning Point in Rilke's Evolution: The Experience of El Greco". "Germanic Review". 72.
• Pallucchini, Rodolfo (May 1948). "Some Early Works by El Greco". "Burlington Magazine". 90 (No.542). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 130–135, 137. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Panayotakis, Nikolaos M. (1986). ""The Cretan Period of the Life of Doménicos Theotocópoulos". Festschrift In Honor Of Nikos Svoronos, Volume B. Crete University Press.
• Pijoan, Joseph (March 1930). "El Greco - A Spaniard". "Art Bulletin". 12 (No.1). College Art Association: 12–19. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Prevelakis, Pandelis (1942). Theotocópoulos-Biography (in Greek). Aetos.
• Procopiou, Angelo (March 1952). "El Greco and Cretan Painting". "Burlington Magazine". 94 (No.588). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 74+76-80. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Rassias John, Alexiou Christos, Bien Peter (1982). "Greco". Demotic Greek II: The Flying Telephone Booth. UPNE. ISBN 0-87451-208-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Richardson, John (23 April 1987). "Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse". "The New York Review of Books". 34 (No.7). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 40–47. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Salas, X. de (February 1961). "The Velazquez Exhibition in Madrid". "Burlington Magazine". 103 (No.695): 54–57. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Sanders Alan, Kearney Richard (1998). "Changing Faces". The Wake of Imagination: Toward a Postmodern Culture. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-41511-950-2.
• Scholz-Hansel, Michael (1986). El Greco. Taschen. ISBN 3-82283-171-9.
• Sethre, Janet (2003). "El Greco". The Souls of Venice. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-78641-573-8.
• Sheehanl, J.J. (2000). "Critiques of a Museum Culture". Museums in the German Art World. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19513-572-5.
• Souchère de la, Dor (1960). Picasso à Antibes (in French). Fernan Hazan (Paris).
• Tazartes, Mauricia (2005). El Greco (translated in Greek by Sofia Giannetsou). Explorer. ISBN 9-60794-583-2.
• "Theotocópoulos, Doménicos". Encyclopaedia The Helios. 1952.
• Valliere, James T. (Autumn 1964). "The El Greco Influence on Jackson Pollock's Early Works ". "Art Journal". 24 (No.1). College Art Association.: 6–9. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)
• Wethey, Harold E. (1962). El Greco and his School (Volume II). Princeton University Press. ASIN B-0007D-NZV-6.
• Wethey, Harold E. (1984). "El Greco in Rome and the Portrait of Vincenzo Anastagi". "Studies in the History of Art". 13: 171–178.

On-line sources

Biographical

• "El Greco". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of European Paintings. Retrieved October 27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Works and Biography of El Greco". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Miscellaneous

• "Film on life of painter El Greco planned, Athens, 9/5/2006 (ANA/MPA)". Athens News Agency. Retrieved October 14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "El Greco in Toledo". Berg, Liisa. Retrieved October 14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "The Baptism of Christ New Light on Early El Greco (Apollo Magazine)". Cormack, Robin - Vassilaki Maria. Retrieved October 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Art Review; Getting in Touch With That Inner El Greco (The New York Times)". Harrison, Helen A. Retrieved October 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "The Shock of the Old". Horsley, Carter B. Retrieved October 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "A Cretan Village that Was the Painter's Birthplace Bridles at a nearby Town's Claim". Kakissis, Joanna. Retrieved October 12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Art Review; El Greco, Bearer Of Many Gifts (The New York Times)". Kimmelman, Michael. Retrieved September 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "At the National Gallery". Penny, Nicholas. Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Art View; Seeing the Art of El Greco as never before (The New York Times)". Russel, John. Retrieved September 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Revelations -The first Major British Retrospective of El Greco Has the Power of a Hand Grenade (The Guardian)". Searle, Adrian. Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "El Greco Drawings could fetch £400,000". The Guardian. Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Further reading

• Aznar, José Camón (1950). Dominico Greco. Madrid.
• Davies, David (Editor), Elliott, John H. (Editor), Bray, Xavier (Contributor), Christiansen, Keith (Contributor), Finaldi, Gabriele (Contributor) (2006). El Greco (catalogue). National Gallery London. ISBN 1-85709-938-9. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Marias, Fernando (2005). El Greco in Toledo. Scala Publishers. ISBN 1-85759-210-7.
• Pallucchini, Rodolfo (March 7, 1937). "II Polittico del Greco della R. Gallena Estense e la Formazione dell'Artista (in Italian)". "Gazzetta dell' Emilia". 13: 171–178.
• Rice, Talbot (Januar 1937). "El Greco and Byzantium ". "The New York Review of Books". 70 (No.406). The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.: 34+38-39. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

• "El Greco - Cretan Painter". Buzzle.com. Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "El Greco Center". Hadjinicolaou, Nicos (supervisor). Retrieved October 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Life and Work of El Greco (in Greek)". Heliades, Amalia. Retrieved October 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "Biography and Tour". National Gallery of Art (USA). Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "El Greco Painter". World Painters Biographies. Retrieved October 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "El Greco: Biography and works". Retrieved November 7. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)