El Greco biography

Synopsis

Early Years: Venice and Rome

El Greco was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos on the island of Crete, which was at the time a Venetian possession. Around age 20, somewhere between 1560 and 1565, El Greco (which means “The Greek”) went to Venice to study and found himself under the tutelage of Titian, the greatest painter of the time. Under Titian, El Greco began mastering the fundamental aspects of Renaissance painting—e.g., perspective, constructing figures, and staging detailed narrative scenes (a prime example of his work from this period is The Miracle of Christ Healing the Blind).

El Greco moved to Rome from Venice after a time, remaining from 1570 to 1576, staying initially in the palace of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one of the most influential and wealthy individuals in Rome. In 1572, El Greco joined the painters’ academy and established a studio, but success would prove elusive (El Greco had criticized Michelangelo’s artistic abilities, which likely led to him being ostracized by the Roman art establishment), and he left Rome for Spain in 1576.

Finding a Foothold: Toledo, Spain

In Madrid, El Greco tried to secure royal patronage from King Philip II, but to no avail, so he moved on to Toledo, where he finally began to find the success history would remember and where he would paint his masterpieces.

In Toledo, El Greco met Diego de Castilla, the dean of the Toledo Cathedral, who commissioned El Greco to paint a group of works for the altar of the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo (such as The Trinity and The Assumption of the Virgin, both 1579). Castilla also facilitated the commission of The Disrobing of Christ (1579), and these paintings would become some of El Greco’s most accomplished masterworks. (Unfortunately, the price El Greco demanded for The Disrobing of Christ led to a dispute, and he never received another comparable commission from Castilla again.)

Regardless of where commissions now came from, El Greco embarked on a wildly successful career in Toledo and produced such landmark works as St. Sebastian (1578), St. Peter in Tears (1582) and The Burial of Count Orgaz (1588). The Burial of Count Orgaz, especially, encapsulates El Greco’s art in that it depicts a visionary experience, transcending the known and revealing that which exists in the spiritual imagination. One of El Greco’s most celebrated works, it features a dichotomy of heaven and earth, the burial and the spiritual world waiting above, and it took his artistic vision beyond what he had previously been able to accomplish.