El Greco Settles in Toledo

1577

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, trained in Crete and Venice, settled in the dusty Castilian cathedral town of Toledo after failing to win royal patronage at the Escorial. There he painted elongated saints twisting under stormy skies. Toledo was too dry and too old to care, and it suited him exactly. Toledo's intense piety and isolation from court fashion gave him the freedom to develop his extraordinary personal vision.