3/24/2023 0 Comments The witness discarded panels![]() ![]() ![]() Candia was a center for artistic activity where Eastern and Western cultures co-existed harmoniously, where around two hundred painters were active during the 16th century, and had organized a painters' guild, based on the Italian model. In addition to painting, he probably studied the classics of ancient Greece, and perhaps the Latin classics also he left a "working library" of 130 volumes at his death, including the Bible in Greek and an annotated Vasari book. Įl Greco received his initial training as an icon painter of the Cretan school, a leading center of post- Byzantine art. Įl Greco's older brother, Manoússos Theotokópoulos (1531–1604), was a wealthy merchant and spent the last years of his life (1603–1604) in El Greco's Toledo home. Almost nothing is known about his mother or his first wife, except that they were also Greek. El Greco's father, Geṓrgios Theotokópoulos ( d. The painting combines post-Byzantine and Italian mannerist stylistic and iconographic elements.īorn in 1541, in either the village of Fodele or Candia (the Venetian name of Chandax, present day Heraklion) on Crete, El Greco was descended from a prosperous urban family, which had probably been driven out of Chania to Candia after an uprising against the Catholic Venetians between 15. The Dormition of the Virgin (before 1567, tempera and gold on panel, 61.4 × 45 cm, Holy Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin, Hermoupolis, Syros) was probably created near the end of the artist's Cretan period. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings, such as View of Toledo and Opening of the Fifth Seal.Įl Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation by the 20th century. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance taken from a number of great artists of the time, notably Tintoretto. In 1570, he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. He trained and became a master within that tradition before traveling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. "El Greco" was a nickname, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ( Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos), often adding the word Κρής ( Krḗs), which means Cretan.Įl Greco was born in the Kingdom of Candia (modern Crete), which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, Italy, and the center of Post-Byzantine art. The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586–1588)ĭomḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( Greek: Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος 1 October 1541 – 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. ![]()
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