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EL GRECO (Doménikos Theotokópoulos; 1541–1614)

EL GRECO (Doménikos Theotokópoulos; 1541–1614), painter, sculptor, and architect. El Greco is usually classified as a Spanish artist, although he was born in Candia, Crete. He had one of the most unconventional career paths of any artist of his era. Initially active in Crete as an icon painter, he transformed his art in Italy through the independent study of works by leading Renaissance artists. Unsuccessful in Italy, he finally settled in Toledo, where his career was fostered by influential ecclesiastics. There, he developed a unique pictorial style, which synthesized aspects of Byzantine and Renaissance artistic traditions.

El Greco was first recorded as a "master painter" in 1563. The recently discovered Dormition of the Virgin (Church of the Dormition, Syros, before 1567) provides the most reliable indication of his early manner. Like other Cretan artists of the late sixteenth century, he introduced a few minor Italian decorative details into a composition, which otherwise adheres to traditional formulas. Characteristic features of the late Byzantine style include the gold background, the vertical organization of pictorial elements, and the simplified modeling of figures.

In late 1567 El Greco was recorded in Venice, the capital of the maritime empire that included Crete. Although many Cretan artists sought work in Venice, El Greco is the only one who substantially altered his style and working methods there. The bright, scintillating colors and the freely applied, roughly textured oil paint of The Purification of the Temple (before 1570, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) reveal his mastery of the distinctive techniques of Titian (1487–1576) and Tintoretto (1518–1594). Most of the figures in this painting were "quoted" from famous Renaissance and ancient classical artworks. Before the end of 1570 he had arrived in Rome, where he lived in the palace of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520–1589), a strong advocate of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. In 1572 El Greco was admitted to the Academy of Saint Luke as a miniature painter. The paintings of his Roman period, such as the Christ Cleansing the Temple (c. 1575, Minneapolis Institute of Arts), have a monumental force that belies their small size.

Unable to obtain significant commissions in Italy, in 1577 El Greco traveled to Spain, in the hope of procuring employment in the extensive royal decorative projects. Before the end of 1577, Don Diego de Castilla (1510–1584), dean of Toledo Cathedral, entrusted him with his first major project: an ensemble of nine altarpieces, five statues, and architectural frames for the convent church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, Toledo. The main altarpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin (1577, Art Institute of Chicago), one of the largest pictures of his career, helped to establish his reputation as the leading artist in Toledo. He resolved to settle permanently in that city after the extreme dissatisfaction of Philip II with The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice (1580/2, El Escorial, Chapter House) forced him to abandon his aspiration to become a royal painter.

By the mid-1580s El Greco had established a profitable artistic practice, which produced statues and paintings for religious institutions throughout Spain. In 1586 he undertook The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (Santo Tomé, Toledo), his most famous painting, representing a miracle that occurred in 1323. In the lower section, he included naturalistic portraits of several contemporary Toledans among the mourners who witness Saints Augustine and Stephen lowering the count into his tomb. In the upper section, he depicted Christ and saints in a bold, expressionistic style, which anticipates his late work.

Between 1597 to 1607 (the most successful period of his career), he completed several major commissions for prominent religious institutions. In The Crucifixion of Christ (1597–1599, Museo del Prado, Madrid) and other altarpieces of this period, he utilized a style of great expressive power. Among the features contributing to the impact of these works are the elongated figures; stylized, but intense, facial expressions and gestures; vivid colors; strong illumination of limited areas against a dark background; and the exceptionally bold application of paint. His notes for an unpublished treatise reveal his unconventional ideas about architecture, but his works in that medium were limited to frames for altarpieces and temporary festival structures. In the monumental high altar of the church of the Hospital of Charity of Illescas (1603–1605), he utilized classical architectural elements in very novel ways. In addition to large-scale commissions, his workshop produced numerous images of Saint Francis and other popular religious subjects.

Between 1607 and 1608 he squandered his financial resources in a series of legal suits concerning payment for his work at the Hospital of Charity, Illescas. These suits left him impoverished, but they helped to inspire later Spanish artists to defend their interests vigorously. Although the extent of his production declined in his later years due to poor health, his creative powers were not diminished. Between 1607 and 1614 he produced some of his boldest paintings, including The Laocoön (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and The Apocalyptic Vision (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Best known as a religious painter, he also depicted most of the leading ecclesiastics and intellectuals of Toledo. Although enlivened by bold brushwork, his portraits are more naturalistic in conception and more sober in coloring than his religious works. The directness of such portraits as Antonio de Covarrubias (c. 1600, Musée du Louvre, Paris) and Fray Hortensio Félix Paravicino (1609, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) evokes his close friendships with these individuals. His few portraits of women, including Woman in a Fur Wrap (c. 1580, Pollock House, Glasgow), express the dignity, intelligence, and beauty of the subjects.

By the time of his death, his distinctive style had fallen out of favor. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several avant-garde artists, including Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) and Franz Marc (1880–1916), helped to promote international interest in his work. He remains one of the most popular of all old master painters. Throughout the twentieth century, numerous explanations—including astigmatism, psychological disorders, and mystical ecstasy—were devised to account for his individual style. In recent decades, scholars have recognized that his distinctive work eloquently fulfilled the requirements of the Counter-Reformation Church in Spain.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Álvarez Lopera, José, ed. El Greco, Identity and Transformation: Crete, Italy, Spain. Milan, 1999. This catalogue of an important exhibition, held (1999–2000) in Madrid, Rome, and Athens, includes discussion of important works from all phases of the artist's career.

Mann, Richard G. El Greco and His Patrons: Three Major Projects. Cambridge, U.K., 1986. A comprehensive study of the artist's interactions with his most important patrons.

Wethey, Harold. El Greco and His School. 2 vols. Princeton, 1962. Still regarded as the most reliable catalogue of the works produced by the artist in Italy and Spain.

RICHARD G. MANN