El Greco (1541–1614) was a prominent painter, sculptor and architect active during the Spanish Renaissance. He developed into an artist so unique that he belongs to no conventional school. His dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but gained newfound appreciation in the 20th century.[1]
He is best known for tortuously elongated bodies and chests on the figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western civilization.[2] Of El Greco, Hortensio Félix Paravicino, a seventeenth-century Spanish preacher and poet, said: "Crete gave him life and the painter's craft, Toledo a better homeland, where through Death he began to achieve eternal life."[3] According to author Liisa Berg, Paravacino revealed in a few words two main factors that define when a great artist gains the appraisal he deserves: no one is a prophet in his homeland and often it is in retrospect that one's work gains its true appreciation and value.[3]