Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes

Born on the Greek island of Crete in 1541, Doménikos Theotokópoulos, as he signed his paintings, was not known as “El Greco” until well after his death in 1614. Initially trained as an icon painter and heavily influenced by the Byzantine tradition, El Greco lived in Venice from 1566 until 1570, when he move to Rome. His contemporaries at the time often referred to him as a “disciple of Titian,” but later generations of critics and historians have linked his artistic style more closely to that of Tintoretto; El Greco’s dramatic lighting and turbulent skies are often considered particularly evocative of the Venetian master.

Candia, Crete