EL GRECO

Although El Greco, “the Greek,” is most usually known as a Spanish painter, he was born Domenikos Theotokopouolos in Crete in 1541, and spent much of his life in Italy.  He was trained in the tradition of Byzantine icon paintings in either Crete or Venice, where many Cretans had settled, and by the 1560s was painting in Titian’s workshop.

In the 1570s he went to Rome.  Although El Greco was well reputed in Italy, he failed to secure any commissions in the city, and was convinced by a Spaniard to move to Toledo, where he spent the next forty years of his life, and where he died in 1614.