GRECO, El
Greek-born Spanish Mannerist Painter, 1541-1614
Greek painter, designer and engraver, active in Italy and Spain. One of the most original and interesting painters of 16th-century Europe, he transformed the Byzantine style of his early paintings into another, wholly Western manner. He was active in his native Crete, in Venice and Rome, and, during the second half of his life, in Toledo. He was renowned in his lifetime for his originality and extravagance and provides one of the most curious examples of the oscillations of taste in the evaluation of a painter,
ID: 62346 The Entombment of Christ late 51,5 x 43 cm Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens This painting is one of the most attractive pictures of El Greco's Venetian period. The artist's barely disguised borrowings from Italian prints (e.g. the three Marys from a print of the Entombment by Parmigianino) are a notable feature of his Cretan- and Italian period pictures and reflect his formation as a painter in the post-Byzantine tradition accustomed to working from established compositional patterns. Author: GRECO, El Title: The Entombment of Christ , 1551-1600 , Spanish Form: painting , religious