El Greco is a Greek painter, sculptor and architect. Greco was born in 1541 and died in 1614. El Greco normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters. El Greco has been characterised by some as an artist so individual that he belongs to no actual named movement. Greco is known for painting elongated figures, often quite darkly coloured and precise. El Greco regarded colour as the most important part of any painting. Supposedly, El Greco believed in constantly retouching and repainting his work, sometimes even on pieces which were months old. The autonomy of the human body inspired Greco as well as religion, he has done many thick oil paintings of Jesus, both upon the cross and not. Greco used a lot of oil paint, applied in both thick and thin layers. He also used quite dark colours and used thin brushes to get all the detail in.
My name is El Greco and I am a Greek painter and sculptor as well as a part time architect. I was born in 1541 in the village of Fodele and I have descended from a successful urban family who were flourishing financially. My father was both a merchant and a tax collector and my mother was a humble woman who kept herself to herself and worked individually from home. My oldest brother, Monoussos, was archant and he spent the final years of his life in my Toledo home.
In addition to painting, I studied both he classics of Ancient Greece and the Latin classics. I have written the Bible in Greek and annotated Vasari, and I will leave these to a library when I die. Still when I was in Crete, I painted the Dormition of the Virgin towards the end of my Cretan period
