El Greco in his artist quotes on painting & life - free resource, Spanish art history

El Greco in his quotes - the artist on painting art, his characteristic use of color, form and the human body - & his life in Spain - free resource for pupils, students and teachers in Spanish art history

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El Greco was a Greek-born artist who painted in his early years Cretan icons. Later he went to Venice to learn painting. He absorbed there a. o. the influence of Tintoretto. He went to Rome in 1570 where he executed a series of works. In 1577 he arrived in Toledo, Spain, where he stayed fot the rest of his life. El Greco was an important artist of Spanish Renaissance.

In his artist quotes El Greco explains his use of color, form and the desired proportion of painting a female body. He also criticized Michel-Angelo. There are not much quotes of El Greco, but many about him!, by contemporary and later artists.
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Some selected artist-quotes of the Italian / Spanish artist El Greco - as short introduction of his extended quotes in the PDF:

• ’I hold the imitation of colour to be the greatest difficulty of art.’ - quote of el Greco; as cited by Fernando Marías and Agustín Bustamante García in ‘Las Ideas Artísticas de el Greco’, Cátedra, 1981, p. 80

• ’I am neither bound to say why I came to this city (Toledo) nor to answer the other questions put to me.’ - El Greco’s quote; in report of the municipal of Toledo, Spain, Sept. 1579

• ’…because in this way the form will be perfect and not reduced, which is the worst thing that can happen to a figure.’ - Quote of El Greco, c. 1582-84; as cited by M. Lambraki-Plaka, in ‘El Greco’, p. 57-59

• ’…by a Dominico Greco… …who paints excellent things in Toledo, is a painting of ‘Saint Maurice and his soldiers’,… …it did not please His Majesty (Philip II of Spain), but that is not surprising, for it pleased few, although it is said it is of much art and that there are many excellent things by his hand.’ quote about El Greco, by Padre Sigüenza, in ‘Historia de la Orden de San Jerónimo’, 1608
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  links for free art-resources on the Italian/Spanish artist El Greco:

  • extended biography notes of El Greco, on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Greco
  • artist-quotes of and about El Greco, on Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/El_Greco
  • images of El Greco’s painting art, on Wikimedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:El_Greco
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    editor: Fons Heijnsbroek / Matrozenhof (FotoDutch on Wikiquote):<br>[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:FotoDutch]