El Greco (1541–1614) was a Cretan-born painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. El Greco left his birthplace for Venice in 1567, never to return. El Greco's three years in Venice profoundly influenced his style. In 1577, he emigrated to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until the end of his life.
El Greco's artworks are thus divided into three main periods:
Works he painted while he was still in Crete Works he painted while he was still in Venice and Rome Works he painted while he was still in Toledo
El Greco was mainly a painter but a few sculptures, including Epimetheus and Pandora, have also been attributed to him.X. de Salas, The Velazquez Exhibition in Madrid, 54–57 This doubtful attribution is based on the testimony of Pacheco, who claimed to see a series of wax, stucco, and wooden figurines in his studio, but these may have been models like those used in the Italian workshops (like the one El Greco himself had created in Italy). The figures illustrated recall certain nudes in paintings by El Greco in their elongated proportions, but their naturalism and the accentuated musculature of the male figure are regarded by certain researchers as surprising for El Greco.Web Gallery of Art, Epimetheus and Pandora Among the surviving El Greco works are four drawings;The Guardian, El Greco Drawings Could Fetch £400,000 three of them preparatory works for the altarpiece of Santo Domingo el Antiguo and the fourth a study for one of his paintings, The Crucifixion.Web Gallery of Art, Study for St John the Evangelist and an Angel
List of selected works At the time of El Greco's death his belonging included 115 paintings, 15 sketches and 150 drawings. In 1908 Manuel B. Cossio, who regarded El Greco's style as a response to Spanish mysticism, published the first comprehensive catalogue of his works. In 1937 a highly influential study by art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini had the effect of greatly increasing the publicly accepted works of El Greco. Palluchini attributed to El Greco a small triptych in the Galleria Estense at Modena on the basis of a signature on the painting on the back of the central panel on the Modena triptych. There was consensus that the triptych was indeed an early work of El Greco and, therefore, Pallucchini's publication became the yardstick for attributions to the artist.R. Palluchini, Some Early Works by El Greco, 130–135 As a result, about 119 disputed compositions (including 19 "signed") were attributed to El Greco. Nevertheless, this "over-production" of El Greco's works created a reaction by other scholars.M. Tazartes, El Greco, 70–71 Wethey denied that the Modena triptych had any connection with the artist and produced a reactive 1962 catalogue raisonné with a greatly reduced corpus of materials. Where art historian José Camón Aznar had attributed between 787 and 829 paintings to El Greco, Wethey reduced the number to 285 authentic works. Halldor Sœhner, a German researcher of Spanish art, recognized only 137. Both Wethey and Sœhner divided in their catalogues the works in those painted by El Greco and those produced by his workshop.
Since 1962 the discovery of the Dormition and the extensive archival research has gradually convinced scholarship that Wethey's assessments were not undisputed, and that his catalogue decisions may have distorted the whole nature of El Greco's origins, development and oeuvre. The discovery of the Dormition led to the attributions of other three signed works of "Doménicos" to El Greco (Modena Triptych, Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child and The Adoration of the Magi) and then to the acceptance as authentic of more works, some signed, some not, which were brought into the group of early works of El Greco. In 2006 another disputed work, The Passion of Christ — Pietà with Angels, has been finally attributed to El Greco. The painting had been photographed just before the signature was removed; Nano Chatzidakis, curator of the British Library exhibition and Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the University of Ioannina, unearthed the restorer's photograph.D. Alberge, Collector Is Vindicated as Icon is Hailed as El Greco
Nowadays the number of El Greco's works is estimated at about 500. Nevertheless, certain disputes over the exact number of El Greco's authentic works remain unresolved, and the status of Wethey's (still highly esteemed) catalogue is at the centre of these disagreements. Quantitatively, the disagreements are mostly concerned with the end rather than the beginning of his career. It is clear his son continued to sell "El Grecos" for many years after the artist's death, and in his later years he had a large workshop who, as with other important artists of the period, produced repetitions of many of his compositions. The identification of these, and deciding how much involvement the master had, if any, in each case, remains unsettled.
These are some of El Greco's most important paintings:
Cretan period (b. 1567)
Image Title Date Technique Size (см) Location Note Adoration of the Magi c.1565 — 1567 Wood, tempera and gold leaf 40 × 45 Benaki Museum, Athens Adoration of the Magi c. 1565 — 1567 Oil on canvas 45 × 52 Museum of Lazaro Galdiano, Madrid Adoration of the Magic. 1565 — 1567 Oil on canvas Museo Soumaya, Mexico City Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child c. 1567 Wood, tempera and gold leaf 41.6 × 33 Benaki Museum, Athens Assumption of the Virgin c. 1567 Wood, tempera and gold leaf 61.4 × 45 Cathedral of the Assumption, Ermoupolis Christ Healing the Blind 1567 oil on canvas 65.5 × 84 Old Masters Gallery, Dresden Modena Triptych c. 1567–1569 Tempera on Wood 37 × 23.824 × 18 Estense Gallery, Modena
Italian period (1567–1577) Image Title Date Technique Size (см) Location Note Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata c. 1567 – 1570 oil on wood 40.9 × 53.3 Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti di Bergamo, Bergamo The Last Supper 1568 –1568 oil on wood 43 × 52 Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Bologna Adoration of the Magi c. 1569 — 1570 oil on canvas 63.5 × 76 Willumsens Museum, Frederikssund, Denmark Purification of the Temple c. 1570 oil on wood 64.5 × 83.2 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Flight into Egypt 1570 oil on wood 15.9 × 21.6 Prado, Madrid Annunciation 1570 oil on wood 26.7 × 20 Prado, Madrid Adoration of the Shepherds 1570–1572 oil on canvas 114 × 104.5 private collection Adoration of the Magi 1570 oil on canvas San Diego Museum of Art Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata 1570 oil on canvas 28.8 × 20.6 Art Museum of the Paliard Foundation, Naples Capodimonte Museum, Naples Mount Sinai c. 1570 oil on canvas 41 × 47.5 Historical Museum of Crete, Heraklion Purification of the Temple c. 1570 oil on canvas 116.8 × 149.8 Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis The Fable 1570–1575 oil on wood 50.5 × 63.6 Prado, Madrid The Entombment of Christ 1570–1576 oil on wood 51 × 43 National Art Gallery, Athens Portrait of Giulio Clovio c. 1571 oil on wood 58 × 86 Capodimonte Museum, Naples Boy Blowing on an Ember to Light a Candle 1571–1572 oil on canvas 60.5 × 50.5 Capodimonte Museum, Naples Portrait of Vincenzo Anastagi 1571–1576 oil on canvas 188 × 126.7 Frick Collection, New York Pieta 1571–1576 Tempera on wood 28.9 × 20 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Portrait of Charles de Guise c. 1572 oil on canvas 178.5 × 94.5 Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland Christ on the Cross 1573 oil on canvas 43 × 28 Barbara Pyasetskaya-Johnson Collection, Princeton Christ Healing the Blind c. 1573 oil on canvas 50 × 61 Parma National Gallery, Parma, Italy Annunciation 1575–1576 oil on canvas 117 × 98 Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
early 1570s Lamentation
Spanish period (1577–1614)