El Greco Paintings

About El Greco

Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541 to 1614, most widely known as El Greco, was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, and he is regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. El Greco was a nickname. He normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, often adding the word that means Cretan in Ancient Greek, so the signature itself says where he came from. His working life covers the second half of the 16th century and the start of the 17th.

The career runs from an early training in Crete to his later years in Spain, and the work bridges the gap between Byzantine tradition and Renaissance innovation. What people recognize first is the bold, elongated figures and the vibrant, dramatic use of color. Domenikos Theotokopoulos signed in Greek and worked in Spain, which is most of the story of the style in one line. The collection keeps his three subjects together: religious art, the portraits, and the landscapes and cityscapes of Toledo.

Series and periods

At present the page carries 134 titles, and they fall into a few groups, so it is easier to choose inside one of them than to scroll the whole of El Greco at once. Many of the subjects come back twice in this catalogue, in a second version of the same composition, so check both before you choose.

• The Gospel scenes: the heart of the work, painted for worship and for the wall of a church rather than for a collector. Titles here: healing the blind, the second version of it, The Disrobing of Christ, The Agony in the Garden, The Last Supper, in Agony on the Cross, Ascension of Jesus.
• The apostles and the saints: single figures, one saint to a canvas, the elongated bodies stretched until the cloth does as much work as the face. These are the easiest of the group to hang, since one of them holds a wall on its own. Titles here: Apostle Saint Paul, Apostle Saint Matthew, Saint Jerome Penitent, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Francis.
• Toledo: the landscapes and cityscapes, the one city he treated the way he treated a sitter, in a wide view and again with a plan of it held up inside the picture. Both of them sell well here, and both work as the single dark picture in a bright room. Titles here: View of Toledo, View and plan of Toledo.
• The church and the court: portrait painting, made on commission for public and private persons and kept afterwards as a state and family record. A master of the genre worked on the face and let the black clothes go dark. Titles here: the Cardinal, Jeronimo de Cevallos, Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino, Diego de Covarrubias, Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos.
• The visions and the classical subjects: the pictures that are neither church commission nor portrait, where the Byzantine side of his training and the Renaissance side pull in opposite directions and neither one wins. Titles here: Opening of the Fifth Seal, Laocoon, The Dream of Philip II, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.

Most famous works

These are the El Greco titles people ask for most in this collection, ordered by the traffic each one draws and by what actually sells. Each name opens its own page, where you choose the size and decide on a frame. Every one is painted in oil after El Greco, to order, and no two hands read a brushstroke the same way.

• View of Toledo: the city under a storm sky, the best known landscape he left and one of the best selling canvases in this collection. It is a wide view of natural scenery with the weather as the real subject, which was rare for a painter working on church commissions
• The Burial of the Count of Orgaz: the burial below and the vision above in a single canvas, the Byzantine tradition in the upper half and Renaissance innovation in the lower. If one picture explains how he worked, it is this one
• Christ healing the blind: a Gospel scene set in deep architectural perspective, with the crowd pushed to the sides and the floor running away behind. One of the most viewed titles on this page
• Christ healing the blind man: the second version of the same subject, a reminder that he came back to his own compositions and changed them rather than repeating them
• The Disrobing of Christ: the red robe at the centre of a crowd pressed in tight, painted for worship in a church and built so the eye finds the red first and the faces second
• Ascension of Jesus: the figure lifted clear of the group below, the elongated body running the whole height of the canvas and the color at its most vibrant
• The Agony in the Garden: night in the olive garden, an angel, and the disciples asleep in a fold of rock, with the dramatic use of color doing the work of lamplight
• The Last Supper: the supper table treated as religious art rather than as a moment of history painting, which is how he treated most narrative
• Christ in Agony on the Cross: the cross against a broken sky, another subject he painted in more than one version, and one of the starkest canvases here
• Opening of the Fifth Seal: the vision of Saint John the Divine, naked figures reaching up out of the lower edge, and the canvas modern painters have kept coming back to
• Laocoon: the classical story of Laocoon set in front of Toledo, the one piece of antiquity in the collection and the clearest sign of what the Renaissance side of him wanted
• The Dream of Philip II: the king kneeling in a crowded vision, heaven above him and a mouth of hell at the side, a commission with the whole court in it
• Portrait of a Cardinal: probably Cardinal Don Fernando Nino de Guevara, seated in red with his glasses on and his hands on the arms of the chair, the most viewed of the heads here
• Portrait of Jeronimo de Cevallos: a head and a white ruff against dark ground, stripped to the face and the collar, and nothing else in the frame
• Portrait of Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino: the friar seated with a book in his hand, one of the heads that sells steadily here, and a good example of a state and family record in paint
• Antonio de Covarrubias: an older sitter painted with very little around him, the face done at close range and the rest left almost in the dark
• Portrait of Diego de Covarrubias: the companion head, the second of the two Covarrubias sitters in the collection, and a picture that reads as a pair with the one above it
• Portrait of the Artist's son Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos: his son, who carried the family name Theotokopoulos that the artist himself signed with in Greek letters
• Apostle Saint Paul: one of the apostle canvases, a saint with a book and a sword seen close up, the hands as expressive as the head
• Apostle Saint Matthew: the same format again, a single saint at half length against grey, one of several apostle canvases you can order from this collection
• Saint Jerome Penitent: the penitent saint out in the rocks with a stone in his hand, a subject painted across the whole Renaissance and rarely this thin and this tall
• Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Francis: two saints standing together, one young and one lined, the elongated figures the style is known for
• View and plan of Toledo: Toledo again, this time with a plan of the city held up inside the painting and a figure pointing at it

Browse by subject

El Greco's subjects run through other collections of ours, and each one is a different door into the same painter.

• Religious paintings: 3,084 works, the visual representation of religious ideas and their relationship with humans, with sacred art the part of it made for worship and religious practice. Most of what El Greco painted belongs here, and so do the Gospel scenes and the apostles above.
• Portrait paintings: 8,463 canvases, the genre whose intent is to represent a specific human subject, worked on commission for public and private persons or out of admiration for the sitter, and long kept as a state and family record. The cardinal, the friar, the two Covarrubias heads and his own son.
• Renaissance art: 650 titles, the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of the European Renaissance, a distinct style in Italy from about 1400, which took the art of classical antiquity as its foundation and transformed it with the science and the northern painting of its own day. He is a master of the Spanish Renaissance, Greek by birth and Cretan by signature, influenced by Byzantine painting before he ever saw Italy.
• Landscape paintings: 8,004 pieces, the genre in which the main subject is a wide view of natural scenery, mountains, valleys, rivers, trees and forests, with sky almost always in the view and weather often an element of the composition. The two views of Toledo, which are the only pure landscapes he left us.
• Angels in oil: 389 paintings, The angel in the garden, the angels in the Burial and the ones carrying the vision in The Dream of Philip II, gathered with every other winged figure we paint.

The full list of painters we reproduce in oil is on the artist index.

How each reproduction is painted

Nothing here is stock. When you order, an artist paints that title in oil on canvas in the size you picked, layer by layer, and you see a photograph of the finished painting and approve it before it leaves the studio. Our artists each have 15 or more years at the easel and work from the public-domain original, so the painting is based on the original image and not on another reproduction, and revisions are free until the photograph looks right to you. Seven sizes are available and the frame is optional, so the same picture can be a small study by a desk or the one thing on a wall. Shipping is free worldwide and returns stay open for 90 days.

Frequently asked questions

Who was El Greco?

Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541 to 1614, a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. El Greco, the name everyone uses, was only a nickname.

Why is he called El Greco?

Because he was Greek, and the nickname stuck. He normally signed with his full birth name in Greek letters, often adding the word that means Cretan in Ancient Greek, which is why he is most widely known as El Greco and almost never as Theotokopoulos.

What is El Greco's style?

Bold, elongated figures and a vibrant, dramatic use of color, the result of an early training in Crete carried into his later years in Spain. The work bridges the gap between Byzantine tradition and Renaissance innovation, and that is why a saint of his looks like no other saint of the period.

Which El Greco painting should I start with?

If you want the city, take View of Toledo. If you want the one canvas that holds his whole method, take The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. If you want a single figure on a wall, take one of the apostles or Saint Jerome Penitent.

How many El Greco titles can I order here?

134 at present, and every one of them is painted to order in oil on canvas in the size you choose, never printed. You see a photograph of the finished work and approve it before it ships, and the frame is yours to add or leave off.

Are these original El Greco paintings?

No. Each one is a new painting, made by hand in oil on canvas after El Greco's composition. It is a reproduction, not a print, and not the original canvas.

What sizes and frames can I order?

Every El Greco reproduction here comes in seven sizes, with an optional frame. You see a photo of the finished oil painting and approve it before it ships, worldwide shipping is free, and returns stay open for 90 days.