The Burial of Count Orgaz, from a Legend of 1323, 1586-88
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco (“the Greek”), was an outsider – a strange young man who came to Spain from his native Crete to seek advancement. He quickly established his reputation as an artist of remarkable powers, at the fulcrum of Spanish society in the court of King Phillip II.
His painterly style positioned him as a mystic, a tortured solitary genius. The character of the man, certainly when he was in Venice and Rome as an apprentice, can best be understood through one of the key moments of his life. When asked his opinion of Michelangelo, then dead but a pre-eminent artist whose legacy must have weighed heavily on the shoulders of aspiring painters, El Greco replied: “He was a good man, but he did not know how to paint.” He further dismissed Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, offering the Pope his services to paint over the entire fresco.