I suffer for my art and despise the witless moneyed scoundrels who praise it.
— El Greco
El Greco had a big personality, El Greco was arrogant, El Greco was a mannerist.
A quintessential example of a mannerist painting is Madonna with the Long Neck by Parmigianino.
Some mannerist characteristics in painting are:
Elongated forms
Oval faces
Unnatural proportions
An attention to surface, such as the rendering of fabrics
A sacrifice of naturalism for expression
The use of angles within body positions
The use of non-naturalistic colours
Crowded spaces (almost like a stage)
Flattened spaces
For the Mannerists, the ideal was the undulating candle flame.
These characteristics are particularly strong in El Greco’s religious paintings (vs. his portraits):
El Greco was an outstanding portraitist!:
He could also paint landscapes:
The previous painting is of Toledo, Spain. El Greco was born in Crete, which was controlled by Venice at the time. He moved from Crete to Venice, as the prospects were brighter for a painter. Starting as a Byzantine icon painter in Crete, he was heavily influenced by Titian and mannerists in Venice and then Rome. This resulted in his more mature style.
Having moved to Rome from Venice and not being particularly successful there, he moved to Spain and made an attempt at being a court painter for Philip II of Spain. This too wasn’t fruitful, so he moved again to Toledo, where he produced his mature and best works.
El Greco was late for a mannerist painter. Circa 1600, the baroque was in vogue in Italy. Around 1600, Caravaggio painted the following:
Despite the baroque taking mindshare, El Greco’s mannerist style was still popular in Toledo. However, when he died in 1614, his reputation died with him. This was true for centuries. And then he became a powerful influence in modernist art!
El Greco influenced early Modernist painters such as Manet and Paul Cézanne. He also influenced Picasso, Modigliani, the German Expressionists, Jackson Pollock, and others.
The examples below are artworks where the influence of El Greco can be directly seen in modernist art: