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El Greco citations

Domínikos Theotokópoulos, dit Le Greco, est un peintre, sculpteur et architecte né en 1541 à Candie , en Crète, alors possession de la république de Venise, et mort le 7 avril 1614 à Tolède.

Il est considéré comme le peintre fondateur de l’École espagnole du XVIe siècle. Son œuvre picturale, synthèse du maniérisme renaissant et de l'art byzantin, est caractérisée par des formes allongées et des couleurs vives. S'il a été célébré de son vivant, il a par la suite été oublié pendant plus d'un siècle. Redécouvert au milieu du XIXe siècle par les romantiques français en particulier, sa peinture extravagante a suscité des commentaires innombrables, souvent en contradiction avec les faits historiques avérés. Sa singularité a influencé de nombreux artistes du XXe siècle, parmi lesquels Picasso et Jackson Pollock. Wikipedia  

✵ 1541 – 7. avril 1614
El Greco photo
El Greco: 9   citations 0   J'aime

El Greco: Citations en anglais

“I am neither bound to say why I came to this city nor to answer the other questions put to me.”

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El Greco

Quote from a report of the municipal of Toledo, c. September 1579; as cited by Albert F. Calvert, and Catherine Gasquoine-Hartley in: The Spanish Series - El Greco; an account of his life and works; publisher, London: J. Lane; New York: J. Lane Co, 1909, p. 76
this answer El Greco gave to the Mayor of Toledo, when asked - in connection with the writ served on him for the commissioned painting 'The Disrobing of Christ / The Expolio' - whether he had been brought to Toledo to paint the retablo of Santo Domingo (containing 15 paintings of El Greco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Greco#/media/File:Domenikos_Theotok%C3%B3poulos,_called_El_Greco_-_The_Assumption_of_the_Virgin_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)

“Now, in order to claim some knowledge of painting, Vitruvius speaks of the consideration of the perfect human body and about how good sculptors and painters in order to make it give it a height of ten faces, and I say that according to them they have read and they say that this proportion is based on knowledge of measurement and that it happens that without it it is not possible to have proportion or consideration because those who are not cognizant of this do not count.”

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El Greco

quoted by Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis, in The Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary History from 1000 to 1810 https://books.google.com/books?id=4xB9k7-Neb8C&pg=PT184; Routledge, New York, 2004) p. 165

“I hold the imitation of colour to be the greatest difficulty of art.”

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El Greco

Quote from notes of El Greco, in one of his commentaries; as cited by Fernando Marías and Agustín Bustamante García in Las Ideas Artísticas de el Greco (Cátedra, 1981), p. 80; taken from Wikipedia/El Greco: in 'Technique and Style'
Original: una es la imitación de los <span class="plainlinks"> colores https://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colores</span> que yo tengo por la mayor <span class="plainlinks"> dificultad https://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dificultad</span>

“.. he [= Michelangelo] was a good man, but he did not know how to paint.”

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El Greco

Marina Lambraki-Plaka, El Greco - The Greek, p. 47–49; as cited on Wikipedia/El Greco
Quote of El Greco's response, when he was later asked what he thought about the Italian artist Michelangelo

“If Vasari really knew the nature of the Greek style of which he speaks, he would deal with it differently in what he says. He compares it with Giotto, but what Giotto did is simple in comparison, because the Greek style is full of ingenious difficulties.”

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El Greco

full of ingenious difficulties [= translation of Greek art historian Nicos Hadjinicolau] /
full of deceptive difficulties [= translation of Spanish art historians Xavier de Salas and Fernando María]

Quote of El Greco, as cited in 'Hand-written Note Shows El Greco Defending Byzantine Style In Face Of Western Art', Dec. 2008 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218132252.htm
the different translation by Nicos Hadjinicolau leads him to the conclusion that El Greco was defending Byzantine art; which is rejected by Fernando María

“.. because in this way the form will be perfect and not reduced, which is the worst thing that can happen to a figure.”

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El Greco

Quote of El Greco, 1582-84; as cited by Marina Lambraki-Plaka, in El Greco, p. 57-59; as quoted in Wikipedia/El Greco: 'Technique and Style'
on making his painting 'The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/El_Greco_-_The_Virgin_of_the_Immaculate_Conception_-_WGA10585.jpg El Greco asked permission to lengthen the altarpiece itself by another 1.5 feet (0.46 m) - the human body became even more otherworldly in his later works

“It has been necessary to show the Hospital de Tavera as a model, for the building hides the Visagra Gate, and the dome obscures part of the town, and once treated as a model and moved from its place, it seemed better to me to show the main façade.... the rest, and its proper relationship to the town can be seen on the plan. Also, in the representation of Our Lady presenting the Chasuble to Saint Ildefonso, in making the figures large, I have applied, in some way, the observation made of celestial bodies that an illuminated body seen at a distance may appear large although it be small.”

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El Greco

Quote of an inscription, composed by El Greco, c. 1608, on the plan of Toledo, in his painting 'View and Plan of Toledo'; as quoted on Outline Biography of El Greco - (documented facts of his life) https://www.wga.hu/tours/spain/greco1.html

“Anyway, I would not be happy to see a beautiful, well-proportioned woman, no matter from which point of view, however extravagant, not only lose her beauty in order to, I would say, increase in size according to the law of vision, but no longer appear beautiful, and, in fact, become monstrous.”

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El Greco

Quote from the marginalia, which El Greco inscribed in his copy of Daniele Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius' De architectura; as quoted by Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis, The Emergence of Modern Architecture: A Documentary History from 1000 to 1810 https://books.google.com/books?id=4xB9k7-Neb8C&pg=PT184; Routledge, New York, 2004) p. 165

“[El Greco 'confined to his bed'].. holding, believing and confessing the Faith of the Holy Church of Rome.... in whose Faith I have lived and die, as a faithful and Catholic Christian.... because of the gravity of my sickness I was unable to make a will and gives power to Jorge Manuel Teotocopuli my son, and of Doña Jerónima de las Cuevas [his wife he never married], who is a person of honesty and virtue [to make his testament, arrange his burial, and pay his debts, and the] remainder of my possessions to go to Jorge Manuel, as universal heir..”

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El Greco

Quote of El Greco, 31 March 1614; as cited in Outline Biography of El Greco - documented facts of his life https://www.wga.hu/tours/spain/greco1.html

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