El Greco (Domenicos Theotokopoulos) 1541-1614

El Greco was one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance. He was born in Venetian occupied Crete, second son of a wealthy merchant.

He received his initial training as an icon painter in Crete which was a centre of artistic activity in the post-Byzantine world. Around 1576 he went to Venice to practice his art where he stayed for a few years and was associated with old age Titian.

He then moved to Rome where was accepted by the intellectual elite and completed a series of important works. Gradually, he developed his unique style of elongated figures and distorted bodies but because of his unpopular criticism of emblematic figures such as Michelangelo he created many enemies in Rome from where he departed in 1577.

First he moved to Madrid and then Toledo, the religious capital of Spain at the time. His first commissions left the King of Spain Philip II unsatisfied and as a result El Greco lost any hope of royal patronage and was forced to abandon his plans to move back to Madrid. It was in Toledo that El Greco produced most of his masterpieces. Among his most famous works are The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, The opening of the Fifth Seal and The Adoration of the Shepherds which he painted during the last year of his life.

During his work on a commission for the Hospital Tavera, El Greco fell ill and died on April 7 1614.
He was buried in the Church of Santo Domingo el Antigua.

The exact number of his works is a subject of dispute among scholars and experts.