El Greco the other seventy), equal in value to a work by Titian or Tintoretto of that period. Therefore, it seems that El Greco traveled to Venice sometime after 27 December 1566. In one of his last articles, Wethey reassessed his previous estimations and accepted that El Greco left Crete in 1567. According to other archival material—drawings El Greco sent to a Cretan cartographer—he was in Venice by 1568. g. Mancini reports that El Greco said to the Pope that if the whole work was demolished he himself would do it in a decent manner and with seemliness. h. Toledo must have
El Greco of Spanish mysticism". He believes that in El Greco's mature works "the devotional intensity of mood reflects the religious spirit of Roman Catholic Spain in the period of the Counter-Reformation". El Greco also excelled as a portraitist, able not only to record a sitter's features but also to convey their character. His portraits are fewer in number than his religious paintings, but are of equally high quality. Wethey says that "by such simple means, the artist created a memorable characterization that places him in the highest rank as a portraitist, along with Titian and Rembrandt". El Greco painted many of