Born in 1541 in Crete, Domenico Theotokopoulos, known as Greco, made his first apprenticeship in the Byzantine tradition before completing his training in Venice and then in Rome.
However, it was in Spain that his art flourished and took root in the 1570s. Attracted by the magnificent promises of the Escorial construction site, the artist imported into the peninsula the colour of Titian, the audacity of Tintoretto and the plastic strength of Michelangelo. This synthesis, original but consistent with his trajectory, gives the Greco, who died four years after Caravaggio, a special place in the history of painting: that of the last great master of the Renaissance and the first great painter of the Golden Age.
Rediscovered at the end of the 19th century, recognised and adopted by the avant-garde artists of the early 20th century, the artist thus enjoyed the dual prestige of tradition and modernity, linking Titian to the Fauns, Mannerism to Cubism and Vorticism.
Greco is also a prolific inventor, deeply renewing and sometimes inventing iconographies, whether Christian or mythological, always testifying to a great independence of mind that finds an echo in the freedom of his touch as well as in the audacity of his palette.
This is the rich face of this Greco retrospective in Paris, the first one, even though France has played a major role in the artist's rehabilitation and international fame.
Exhibition "Greco" at the Grand Palais from October 16th 2019 to February 10th 2020.
