El Greco

Domenikos Theotocopoulos AKA…“El Greco” (The Greek) was a Spanish artist during the Late Renaissance period.  Born in Crete in 1541, he was considered a Mannerist.  His art is considered the forerunner of both Expressionism and Cubism and it was not until the 18th century that his works were re-assessed and he was labeled as a “pioneer of the European Romantic movement”.  

An architect and sculptor as well, El Greco often used a variety of his artwork in different buildings.  He is most famous for elongated figures and unique colors in his artwork.  During his time, he was considered “outside the box,” because he was critical of other artists that the general populace loved.  He really did things his own way and at that time was not truly appreciated until after his death.  It was not until about 250 years later that El Greco became widely accepted.

While tutoring at Classical Conversations, I discovered El Greco for the first time.  His paintings speak to me.  An exercise we gave the kids made my head spin and for that reason we have the El Greco Art pieces to remember and enjoy.  We had each child draw a figure.  They took that sketch and cut it up into three to five pieces and glued them down with at least half an inch in between each slice of the original image.  The students then drew in the remaining pieces of the picture.

I took those drawings and outlined them with a black Sharpie so they’d be more visible when I copied them onto fabric.  Here are the videos I made which show the steps:

Part1

Part 2

Part 3

These are our El Greco pieces.