free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

The Great Island
Cretan painter, in whom the west has an interest. I mean Domenicos
Theotokopoulos, El Greco.
Greco was born in the Candia area in 1541. The village which claims
him – Fodhele – lies in low marshy ground a few miles below the main
Heraklion to Canea road. It is a straggling, dirty, unfriendly, wellwatered
place, standing in orange groves. There is a plaque in honour
of the master, set up by Spanish well-wishers, and the little church
contains a book of Greco reproductions. One can make the pilgrimage
easily from Heraklion. For some reason we chose to make it the most
arduous, but exhilarating way, by bicycle; and so, since we took the
coast road, did not miss the marvellous coves below Fodhele.
Research on Greco goes on continuously, of course, and his early life
has recently been illuminated. It seems that he did not leave Crete until
1566. For the one-time Greek consul in Venice, Mr Mertzios, found
quite recently in the Venetian archives a paper dated 1566, which
comes from Heraklion and bears the signature: ‘Maestro Menegas
Theotokopoulos, painter. . . .’ This means that Crete figures more
largely in the painter’s life than was thought; for it had been assumed
that he left for Venice some years earlier. If Greco was at least 25 when
he left, and called maestro at that, he must have learned the trade in
Crete.
The fact is that Greco followed exactly the path which, as we have
seen, so many other Cretan painters took; only he went further afield
than most when he left Rome for Spain in 1576. He will have learnt at
Candia to paint in the Byzantine tradition. As a younger contemporary
of Damaskinos, he may have known him; may even have studied under
him, as tradition has it, though there is no evidence. At the same time
he could see the Italian paintings which decorated the nobles’ houses in
Candia, and doubtless he will have learnt to paint in the Italian style.
For provincial Cretan painters at this time, like Ritsos and Pavias,
could use both.
Till Venice then, the same course as Damaskinos. This is not mere
speculation, for the two icons in the Benaki Museum of Athens which
have the signature Cheir. Domenikou (hand of Domenikos) – an Adoration
of the Magi and a St Luke Painting the Virgin – are almost certainly early
Grecos, and very likely from his Cretan period. The St Luke is a post-
Byzantine painting, and the Adoration shows that Greco already had
Venetian technique. And so to Venice, where he stayed till 1570.
Sometime in the three or four years he was there, he made the decision
that Damaskinos did not make – to break away from the Byzantine
tradition. The rest of the story is well known.
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