El Greco, Life and Work, a New History

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known to us as El Greco, was one of the seminal figures of the Spanish Golden Age. Born in Crete in 1541 under Venetian rule, raised in the iconographic traditions of Byzantine art, and acquainted with both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic practice, El Greco went to Venice and Rome in the late Renaissance, before seeking patronage in Spain at the court of Philip II. He was a painter not only of religious subjects, but also of idiosyncratic portraits executed in his own uniquely lively and immediate style. He spent approximately half his life in Toledo, a city with which his name has become indelibly linked, although he was never fully accepted there and had a reputation as an opinionated and disputatious outsider.All this and more is detailed in this magnificent, richly illustrated book, which reproduces many recently cleaned and restored paintings, revealing hitherto unknown facets of his work. Fernando Marías looks behind the manifold and often conflicting myths about El Greco's life and art and seeks the truth about the man and his extraordinary talent for invention.