The Formative Years of El Greco in Venice and Greece: Tradition, Influences and Innovation

The paper aims to delineate certain issues on the nature of influence in the early works and practice of El Greco. It briefly looks at the cultural context within which he painted during his formative early period in native Crete, and later his brief sojourn in Venice, which was to leave a lasting impact on the work he produced throughout his entire career. The specific historical, and subsequently cultural environments, of Crete and Venice contributed greatly to the heterogeneous and often difficult-to-classify style of this late Renaissance painter. In the paper, a few select works from the two initial periods are examined, which perhaps best illustrate what author Andrew R. Casper calls ‘the artful icon’, a work of art which merges the practical methods of icon making with the theory-driven and emotionally evocative nature of Italian Renaissance painting. El Greco’s affinity for Venetian Cinquecento painting, particularly the work of Titian and Tintoretto, is looked at not only through stylistic synchronicities, but also the artist’s explicit commentary on Vasari’s derogatory view of Venetian art in his Vite. The paper seeks to present insight into the wealth of iconographic and theoretical sources driving El Greco’s production in this formative period, as well as the specific cultural context and its role in his painting.