El Greco as great-grandfather of Picasso and other modern artists

Recently, Dutch historian Eric Storm published De ontdekking van El Greco. Aartsvader van de moderne kunst.

Translated from the Leiden university weekly:

The painter El Greco (1541-1614) was only a local hero when he was alive and then he was forgotten.

Until Picasso and Kandinsky promoted him as ancestor of modern art.

Just one painting was sold by Vincent van Gogh during his whole life.

El Greco (1541-1614) had a similar fate. …

King Philip II did not even want to give him commissions …

In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, El Greco was rediscovered.

The interest of modern artists played a role in this.

El Greco’s The opening of the fifth seal of the Apocalypse inspired the composition of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso.

The late nineteenth and twentieth centuries were also a time of rising nationalism; when also in Spain there was an interest in making ‘national heroes’.

It is remarkable that a Greek, educated in Italy, is turned into the father of Spanish painting.

Cubist painter Clave, friend of Picasso, dies: here.

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