"EL GRECO"

El Greco 

He was a famous painter in the "Early Moderm Spain" 

("The Greek", 1541 – 7 April 1614) was a painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He usually signed his paintings in Greek letters with his full name, Doménicos Theotokópoulos (Greek: Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος), showing his Greek origin.

El Greco was born in Crete. He trained and became a master of that kind of art before travelling at 26 to Venice. In 1570, he moved to Rome and opened a workshop and made a series of works. While he was in Italy.

In 1577, at the age of 36, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death in 1614.

In Toledo, El Greco painted his best-known paintings.

He first became popular when he began to paint religious scenes at the cathedral in Toledo.

The figures in his paintings were different than other painters would have done them–they looked tall and stretched out–their legs, necks, faces, and arms were thinner and longer than real people have.

He used color to express emotion within his paintings (often blues and other cool colors) instead of painting the scenes in their exact real-life colors.

He believed that showing emotion in art was more important than showing reality. Here are two of his paintings that express this style.

His paintings generally have very bright parts contrasting with very dark parts.