The Labyrinth of El Greco

from Byzantine icons to European Expressionism

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Detail from The Adoration of the Shepherds — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — Detail from The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1596–1600. MNAR.
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About the exhibition

Born in Crete, trained in the tradition of icon painting and transformed by his encounter with the Italian Renaissance, Doménikos Theotokópoulos finds in Toledo the voice we now know as El Greco. His journey is not merely a passage between countries, but a continual reinvention of the image: colour becomes intensity, light creates space, and elongated bodies give form to a spiritual world. The exhibition follows this path, from the Byzantine legacy and his experiences in Venice and Rome to the modern and contemporary echoes of his work. Paintings by the artist meet those of his predecessors and those who rediscovered him. At the heart of the journey, The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Marriage of the Virgin invite us to look closely, attending to gesture, detail and the relationships between figures.

Crete

A painter’s formation in the Byzantine icon tradition.

Triptych (two panels) — Cretan workshop — 1541Candia

Doménikos Theotokópoulos is born

In 1541, on Crete, the island to which Zeus, disguised as a bull, had carried Europa, Doménikos Theotokópoulos is born: “Menegos” in the local dialect. He grows up in a hybrid, bilingual culture at its height: Byzantine architecture with classical details, Latin and Greek schools, icons of Byzantine saints beneath Gothic arches. His life will come to resemble the labyrinth of Daedalus.

Triptych (two panels)
Cretan workshop

16th century · tempera on wood, 48.5 × 28 cm
National Museum of Art of Romania

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Saint Phanourios (?) — Cretan workshop — 16th c.Argeș

Cretan icons reach the Romanian lands

Cretan icons circulate widely throughout the Balkans and the Romanian principalities, becoming models for local workshops, especially the Virgin “Hodegetria”. Cretan craftsmen work on the frescoes of Argeș Monastery and, possibly, in Moldavia. Local art adopts their elegant lines, refinement, taste for miniatures and narrative, as well as saints dear to Cretans: Phanourios and the winged John the Baptist.

Saint Phanourios (?)
Cretan workshop

16th century · fresco, 242 × 58 cm
National Museum of Art of Romania

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Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1566Candia

“Maistro sgourafos”

A document dated 6 June 1566 calls him “maistro sgourafos”: a formally recognised master painter. And a very well-paid one: a December receipt records 70 gold ducats for an icon of Christ, as much as a Tintoretto on the Venetian market. The few surviving icons from his Cretan years already introduce “quotations” from Raphael, Parmigianino and Zuccari, borrowed from engravings, into the Byzantine canon.

Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1560–67 · tempera on wood, 41.6 × 33 cm
Benaki Museum, Athens

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Venice and Rome

Encounters with Venetian painting and the artists of Rome.

The Adoration of the Magi — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1567Venice

A Cretan in the Serenissima

Aged 25, in the first months of 1567, he leaves Crete for good. Venice has 150,000 inhabitants, ten times as many as the colony, and is Europe’s most cosmopolitan metropolis. Many Greek icon painters here copy the Venetian masters using the techniques of icon painting. El Greco does not even appear in the Greek community’s registers. He wants to learn a different way of painting.

The Adoration of the Magi
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1565–67 · oil on canvas, 148 × 173.5 cm
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome

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Ecce Homo — Tiziano Vecellio (1490–1576) — 1567Venice

Titian, the patriarch

The supreme authority in Venetian painting is Titian, almost eighty, a count palatine since 1533 and Philip II’s favourite painter. He runs his workshop as a family business, with his brother, son and nephew. No document places El Greco there, but the Cretan studies his paintings, adopts his handling of paint and will describe himself throughout his life as a “disciple of Titian”.

Ecce Homo
Tiziano Vecellio (1490–1576)

c. 1560 · oil on canvas, 65.5 × 53 cm
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu

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Portrait of Giulio Clovio — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1570Rome

“A young man from Candia…”

The first Roman trace is a letter of 16 November 1570. The miniaturist Giulio Clovio, aged 72, writes to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese: “A young man from Candia, a disciple of Titian, has arrived in Rome […] he has painted a self-portrait that has astonished all the painters in Rome.” He asks for a room for him in the Palazzo Farnese. El Greco paints Clovio holding his famous breviary.

Portrait of Giulio Clovio
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1571 · oil on canvas, 58 × 86 cm
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples

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The Prophet Jeremiah (after Michelangelo) — Giorgio Ghisi (1520–1582) — 1572Rome

Repaint the Last Judgement?

His stay at the Palazzo Farnese ends abruptly in 1572, following an offence to the cardinal or an intrigue. Half a century later, the papal physician Giulio Mancini circulates an anecdote: El Greco supposedly offered to strip Michelangelo’s “Last Judgement” from the Sistine Chapel and paint a better one himself. It is unconfirmed, but plausible: Venetians and Tuscans were no great admirers of one another.

The Prophet Jeremiah (after Michelangelo)
Giorgio Ghisi (1520–1582)

engraving, 56.3 × 43.2 cm
National Museum of Art of Romania

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Toledo

Major commissions and the emergence of a distinctive language.

Christ Carrying the Cross — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1577Toledo

First commissions, first lawsuit

Soon after arriving in Toledo, he receives two major commissions through the cathedral’s dean, Diego de Castilla: the altarpieces for Santo Domingo el Antiguo, where he replaces the tiered Spanish altarpiece with a painting over four metres high, and “El Espolio” for the cathedral sacristy. The latter leads to his first lawsuit: he refuses to alter the painting. Such resolve is rare among the generally more compliant Spanish painters.

Christ Carrying the Cross
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1600–05 · oil on canvas, 108 × 78 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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The Martyrdom of the Theban Legion — Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli (1578–1631) — 1579–82El Escorial

The king says no

In 1579, Philip II sees the painting in Toledo Cathedral and commissions “The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice” for El Escorial, a canvas almost 4.5 metres high. El Greco works on it for three years, hoping to become a court painter. The king rejects it: the martyrdom is relegated to the background, almost a detail, while the Counter-Reformation demanded clear messages. Nevertheless, he pays 800 ducats and keeps the painting at the Escorial.

The Martyrdom of the Theban Legion
Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli (1578–1631)

1614–20 · oil on canvas, 145 × 107 cm
National Museum of Art of Romania

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Le Vite […] — Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) — 1586Toledo

Notes in the margins of Vasari

Federico Zuccari, an old friend from his Roman years, comes to work at the Escorial and visits him in Toledo. He gives him Giorgio Vasari’s celebrated “Lives” of the Italian artists, already annotated by Zuccari. El Greco fills the margins with his own, sometimes scathing, comments. He is an unusual intellectual among local painters: his library contains around 130 books in Greek, Italian and Spanish.

Le Vite […]
Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574)

1568 · printed book
“G. Oprescu” Institute of Art History

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The Adoration of the Shepherds — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1600Madrid

The greatest altarpiece

In July 1600, the grandest altarpiece of his career is installed in Madrid, in the church of the College of the Incarnation founded by Doña María de Aragón: over ten metres high, with seven paintings and statues of saints. The altarpiece is destroyed in the early nineteenth century; today, the Spanish Senate stands on the site of the church. The paintings are saved: five are at the Prado, while “The Adoration of the Shepherds” has reached Bucharest.

The Adoration of the Shepherds
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1596–1600 · oil on canvas, 346 × 137 cm
National Museum of Art of Romania

Interactive exploration

The Adoration of the Shepherds

The Adoration of the Shepherds

The Marriage of the Virgin — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1600–10Toledo

A gesture that brings them together

Mary and Joseph join hands before the priest, surrounded by witnesses. The figures’ elongated silhouettes and the folds of their garments lead the eye towards this discreet gesture. The journey through the painting brings its participants closer, revealing the gazes and relationships that hold the ceremony together.

The Marriage of the Virgin
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1600–10 · oil on canvas, 110 × 83 cm
National Museum of Art of Romania

Interactive exploration

The Marriage of the Virgin

The Marriage of the Virgin

Saint Sebastian — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1610–14Toledo

Ever higher, ever lighter

In his final years, the painting of “El Griego” becomes increasingly ethereal, dematerialised and ascending. Bodies lengthen, brushwork vibrates, and the laws of nature bend towards a transfigured reality. The foundation remains the Byzantine icon, enriched by Venetian and Roman Mannerism. The result is perhaps the most modern art of the early modern age.

Saint Sebastian
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1610–14 · oil on canvas, 201.5 × 111.5 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

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Saint Thomas — Doménikos Theotokópoulos — 1614Toledo

A personal museum

El Greco dies in Toledo in April 1614. The inventory of the roughly twenty rooms of the palace rented from the Marquis of Villena is astonishing: almost fifty clay, wax and plaster figurines, two hundred prints, around 130 books and 143 paintings of his own, including finished works, models and sketches. The largest personal museum ever assembled by an artist, and inevitably ephemeral.

Saint Thomas
Doménikos Theotokópoulos

1610–14 · oil on canvas, 97 × 77 cm
Museo del Greco, Toledo

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Modern echoes

El Greco in dialogue with modern and contemporary art.

Carl Moll — Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980) — 1913Vienna

An ancestor of the Expressionists

At the beginning of the twentieth century, El Greco’s vision finds its heirs in German and French Expressionism before the First World War. Elongated bodies, charged colours, figures that seem to burn from within. These years also mark the beginning of the art historians’ odyssey: rediscovered documents, attributed works, an oeuvre reconstructed painting by painting, and the first major international exhibitions.

Carl Moll
Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980)

1913 · oil on canvas, 128 × 95 cm
Belvedere, Vienna

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Two Skulls after El Greco and Blackbird — Victor Man (b. 1974) — 2017The artist’s studio

Two skulls after El Greco

Four centuries after his death, El Greco remains a living interlocutor. Victor Man, one of the most acclaimed Romanian painters of our time, dedicates variations in oil and watercolour to him: “Two Skulls after El Greco and Blackbird”. His dark palette, forms dissolving into shadow and the almost liturgical mystery of his painting continue a dialogue that began in Toledo.

Two Skulls after El Greco and Blackbird
Victor Man (b. 1974)

2017 · oil on canvas mounted on wood, 30 × 41 cm
Collection of the artist

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Artworks in the exhibition

Triptych (two panels)Cretan workshop

Saint Phanourios (?)Cretan workshop

Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and ChildDoménikos Theotokópoulos

The Adoration of the MagiDoménikos Theotokópoulos

Ecce HomoTiziano Vecellio (1490–1576)

Portrait of Giulio ClovioDoménikos Theotokópoulos

The Prophet Jeremiah (after Michelangelo)Giorgio Ghisi (1520–1582)

Christ Carrying the CrossDoménikos Theotokópoulos

The Martyrdom of the Theban LegionJorge Manuel Theotocópuli (1578–1631)

Le Vite […]Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574)

The Adoration of the ShepherdsDoménikos TheotokópoulosInteractive exploration · 2.5D

The Marriage of the VirginDoménikos TheotokópoulosInteractive exploration · 2.5D

Saint SebastianDoménikos Theotokópoulos

Saint ThomasDoménikos Theotokópoulos

Carl MollOskar Kokoschka (1886–1980)

Two Skulls after El Greco and BlackbirdVictor Man (b. 1974)

Audio guide

The audio guide will be added here when the recording is available.

Plan your visit

Continue your journey in the galleries of the National Museum of Art of Romania, in the former Royal Palace on Calea Victoriei.

The dates and admission arrangements for the El Greco exhibition are yet to be confirmed.

National Museum of Art of Romania

49–53 Calea Victoriei, Bucharest

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