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
Saint Sebastian (El Greco, 1576–1579) As Andrew Casper says in his "Art and the Religious image in El Greco's Italy", the figure in "Saint Sebastian" is a quotation of a “figure taken from Michelangelo's body of work—though scholars do not agree on which one.” Certainly a number of scholars have made much of the seeming comparison between El Greco's Sebastian and various figures from Michelangelo's body of work. In his work on El Greco, Michael Scholz-Hansel states without prelude that the figure is “based on Michelangelo as well as on the renowned Greco-Roman statue of Laocoön and His Sons which the artist had evidently studied