Comparative Literature Commons^™

Delno C. West Award Winner: Tradition And Originality In El Greco’S Work: His Synthesis Of Byzantine And Renaissance Conceptions Of Art, Richard G. Mann

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Domenicos Theotokopoulos (1541–1614), usually called El Greco, had one of the most unusual "career paths" of any artist of his era. In less than a decade, he transformed himself from a Byzantine icon painter into one of the most innovative artists of the western European Renaissance. His Spanish contemporaries had no difficulty in acknowledging the significance of his origins. Thus, the court poet Paravicino declared “Creta le dió la vida y los pinceles” (Crete gave him life and the painter’s craft). Nevertheless, most North American and western European scholars of the modern era have maintained that his initial experiences as …