Richard G. Mann

Three Major Projects

El Greco and His Patrons

The bold and unusual religious paintings of the Spanish artist El Greco (c. 1541â€“1614) have aroused widespread interest and wonder, yet little has been known about the artist's patrons. This is a comprehensive study of the several individuals who financed, encouraged and influenced El Greco's extraordinary artistic endeavours. Mann reconstructs the lives of several of the artist's patrons and demonstrates how El Greco's pictorial ensemble reflected the patrons' concerns. Thus the actual context of El Greco's work is established. The book indicates that the artist's patrons helped to shape both the style and iconography of the paintings, and clarifies the precise nature of the connection between the paintings and Spanish mysticism. In studying the purposes and meaning of El Greco's religious paintings, the author thereby provides the basis for an alternative interpretation of the artist's work and presents many insights into life in sixteenth-century Spain.

Art Institute of Chicago

Peter Klein

Martha Wolff

Judith Berg Sobre

Susan Frances Jones

Cynthia Kuniej Berry

Larry Silver

"This volume documents the Art Institute of Chicago's significant - yet relatively unknown - collection of French, Spanish, Netherlandish, English, and German paintings created before 1600. More than one hundred works, including altarpieces, private devotional works, portraits, and landscapes by such masters as Lucas Cranach, Gerard David, El Greco, Jan Gossart, and Rogier van der Weyden, receive their first in-depth analysis. More than 350 images - including comparative illustrations of underdrawings, reconstructed ensembles, and related works - accompany the entries"--BOOK JACKET

A Catalogue of the Collection

Northern European and Spanish Paintings Before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago

Richard G. Mann

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