Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This new introduction to El Greco (1541-1614) follows the artist from his native island to Venice, Rome, Madrid, and then Toledo, the ecclesiastical capital of Spain. El Greco's ability to assimilate different artistic techniques and approaches to religion and philosophy enabled him to develop one of the most original styles of painting in the history of Europe. Despite his highly successful career he was unappreciated for centuries after his death, and this book examines how his genius was rediscovered in the nineteenth century.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Bray's highly readable essay on El Greco offers an excellent and intelligent introduction to his life and work. The complex times and variety of places in which he lived are described with both clarity and deftness. Beautiful illustrations of a wide range of work (including a sculpture) are provided, and El Greco's ongoing importance to subsequent artists is not only indicated, but given some specificity and bite. The result is admirably rich, yet concise and accessible. The booklet by curator Bray is designed for the attendees of this year's El Greco exhibition in London who might not be willing to take on the large catalog by Davies and Elliott. It fulfills this worthwhile function admirably, but will be equally useful to a more general readership, including beginning students. The 1982 catalog of a major El Greco exhibition (El Greco of Toledo, CH, Dec'82) makes an interesting foil to the volume by Davies and Elliott, written in honor of the current exhibition in London and, previously, in New York. The pictures look much better, due in some cases to cleaning, but in others simply to improved photography. The present volume is visually quite stunning. Twenty years ago El Greco was more of a Mannerist and more of a consummate artist. Now his career seems less smooth and easy, his stylistic development more complicated, his reception more various. He has become more of an individual even as he has grown less conventionally unconventional. He remains of course a learned artist coping with the Counter-Reformation, but now he is a man with secular interests and a personal viewpoint. The great Laocoon painting, which in 1982 was deemed difficult to interpret, is now taken as a political allegory, a theory discounted as mere "suggestion" 20 years ago. The author of that "suggestion" is the guest curator of the present effort, and he gives us a compelling version of a more complex career. Beautiful and highly readable. ^BSumming Up: Both books: Highly recommended. Bray: General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates; professionals. Davies: General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. P. Emison University of New Hampshire