El Greco. First period


El Greco (the Greek) (1541-1614) started as an icon painter in Heraklion, where an unsightly little street in the old quarter still reminds us of him. It is behind Chándakos Street, where two icon studios still exist. The Historical Museum owns the “View of the Catherine Monastery” by his hand, a landscape.

We are very interested in El Greco because of his background as an icon painter.
He was a master in Heraklion at age 20, by age 22 Domínikos Theotokópoulos had his own studio. The legendary Angelos Akotantos had been dead for a hundred years by El Greco's time, but his icons could be admired everywhere in the churches and monasteries of Crete. He was the teacher of all and his influence lasted well beyond his death, I dare say his technique lives on even to our days. Another greatness among painters was Theófanes Bathás Strelitzas, Theófanes the Cretan, who was summoned to a Meteora monastery in Thessaly to paint the church. A further great talent was contemporary Michael Damaskinós (1535-1591), an all-rounder, who produced beautiful Byzantine icons, though a bit superficial and a bit slick. Damaskinós, 6 years older, must have been the leading painter in Heraklion. His modernity is unmistakable - everything gets prettier, easier, handier and smoother with him. As if an advertising designer had turned to icon painting. He lived for ten years in Venice where he turned Orthodox festive turnedicons into Renaissance scenes that were neither Byzantine nor Western, but a little in between.
Domínikos was the man of flapping robes, wonderful curly-haired angels and exciting and bold colors.

(1566)                      

That modernity was somewhat imported by the Venetians who ruled Crete. Paintings of the Quattrocento, etchings by Raimondi circulated and Domínikos also had it in his grasp. His icons are actually Renaissance and compared to him, Damaskinós is even an old-style Byzantine in his icons.
Probably much praised by the Venetians he also went to Venice in 1566 where he stayed for 4 years and was apprenticed to the mannerist Titian it is said. That may not be true, because 4 years later in Rome he was master of a studio and very well aware of his own worth: he did not consider Michelangelo a good painter. However, he did admire him as a sculptor, and one can still see his study of sculpture reflected in his later rendering of flesh parts.