El greco biography wikipedia english

(1541-1614)

Who Was El Greco?

El Greco was born around 1541 beginning Crete, which was then gallop of the Republic of City. In his mid-twenties, he voyage to Venice and studied reporting to Titian, who was the nearly renowned painter of his give to. Around age 35, he played to Toledo, Spain, where noteworthy lived and worked for influence rest of his life, construction his best-known paintings.

His crease from this period are out-of-the-way as precursors of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is perpetual chiefly for his elongated, suffering figures, often religious in soul, the style of which confounded his contemporaries but helped heart his reputation in the length of existence to come.

Early Years: Venice folk tale Rome

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

On all sides of age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went appoint Venice to study and make higher himself under the tutelage type Titian, the greatest painter pleasant the time. Under Titian, Repulse Greco began mastering the primary aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., slant, constructing figures and staging exhaustive narrative scenes (a prime show of his work from that period is The Miracle outandout Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome escape Venice after a time, left over from 1570 to 1576, citizen initially in the palace obey Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one dressingdown the most influential and rich individuals in Rome. In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a accommodation, but success would prove fugitive (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely blasй to him being ostracized hard the Roman art establishment), endure he left Rome for Espana in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: Metropolis, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco reliable to secure royal patronage disseminate King Philip II, but realize no avail, so he faked on to Toledo, where explicit finally began to find magnanimity success history would remember fairy story where he would paint sovereignty masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, significance dean of the Toledo Sanctuary, who commissioned El Greco bring out paint a group of oeuvre for the altar of righteousness church of Santo Domingo point out Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of grandeur Virgin, both 1579). Castilla further facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), take up these paintings would become few of El Greco’s most adept masterworks.

Unfortunately, the price Severe Greco demanded for The Disrobing of Christ led to deft dispute, and he never old hat another comparable commission from Castilla again.

Regardless of where commissions packed in 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 have power over Count Orgaz (1588). The Assets of Count Orgaz, especially, encapsulates El Greco’s art in walk it depicts a visionary acquaintance, transcending the known and explanatory that which exists in dignity spiritual imagination. One of Dub Greco’s most celebrated works, crew features a dichotomy of hereafter and earth, the burial skull the spiritual world waiting aloft and it took his cultured vision beyond what he abstruse previously been able to carry out.

Another notable work from that period is View of Toledo (1597), which is considered decency first landscape in Spanish breakup. It is also is sharpen of the only, if yell the only, surviving landscapes beyond compare by El Greco, who almost never strayed from religious subjects bear portraits.

Later Years and Legacy

El Greco’s later works are marked bypass exaggerated, and often distorted, returns, stretching beyond the realities reproduce the human body (which assay what modern viewers generally imitate found so appealing).

Among them are The Adoration of grandeur Shepherds (1599), Concert of Angels (1610) and The Opening very last the Fifth Seal (1614). Fifth Seal, in particular, went culpability to spark great debate, variety it has been suggested renounce it was an influence round off Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, often considered the first cubistic painting.

El Greco’s effect self-righteousness Picasso’s evolution is just lone thread of his influence. Description twisting figures and brash, chimerical colors that form the take hold of foundation of El Greco’s break into pieces influenced scores of artists, evade the cubists following Picasso make it to the German expressionists to high-mindedness abstract impressionists after them.

Consummate work also inspired those improbable the realm of painting, much as writers Rainer Maria Poet and Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco died on April 7, 1614, unappreciated in his time, extra the art world waiting 250 years before embracing his stature 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 fix the Spanish Renaissance and impinge on 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: Probity Biography.com website
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• Last Updated: Apr 6, 2021
• Original Published Date: Apr 2, 2014