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 down his experiences in "The Spanische Reise", the first book which established El Greco as a great painter of the past. In El Greco's work, Meier-Graefe found foreshadowings of modernity. To the Der Blaue Reiter group in Munich in 1912, El Greco typified that "mystical inner construction" that it was the task of their generation to rediscover. To the English artist and critic Roger Fry in 1920, El Greco was the archetypal genius who did as he thought best "with complete indifference to what effect the right expression might have on the public". Fry described El Greco as "an old