A framed painting by El Greco entitled "Portrait of a Man".

El Greco, born Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541 to 7 April 1614), was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. El Greco meaning The Greek was a nickname, a reference to his national Greek origin. El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the center of Post Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before travelling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best known paintings. His dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school.He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. This painting is considered a self portrait.