The Immaculate Conception (El Greco, Toledo) of his vital role in the Spanish Renaissance movement. He left behind a circle of like-minded individuals in Italy, mostly scholars and fellow artists, who shared the belief that a "virtuoso", or a true artist, was one that surpassed basic craftsmanship into the realm of artistic imagination. However, this Italian mutual ideology and treatment of artists was not echoed in Toledo, Spain.In hopes of becoming a reputed and well-represented artist in Spain, El Greco aimed to be recognized by King Phillip II. Royal patronage would have ensured a secure transition to Spain, and could possibly have helped him to move
Art of El Greco Art of El Greco 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 new found appreciation in the 20th century. 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. Of El Greco, Hortensio Félix Paravicino, a seventeenth-century Spanish preacher and poet, "Crete gave him life and the painter's