Domenikos Theotokopoulos was born in Candia, the capital of Crete, in 1541. Crete was then controlled by the Republic of Venice. He was trained within the island's tradition of religious icon painting and had achieved the status of master painter while still in Crete.
El Greco left Crete during the 1560s and traveled to Venice. There he encountered a very different artistic tradition. Venetian painting emphasized color, atmosphere, movement, and the possibilities of oil paint. The work of artists such as Titian and Tintoretto had an important influence upon his development.
Around 1570 El Greco moved to Rome. He became associated for a time with the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and encountered the intellectual and artistic culture surrounding the Farnese Palace. He joined the Roman Academy of Saint Luke in 1572 and established his own workshop.
El Greco continued to study Italian art during these years. The work of Michelangelo and other Renaissance masters influenced his treatment of the human figure and monumental composition. Nevertheless, he failed to secure the major public commissions in Rome that might have established his career there.
By 1577 El Greco had moved to Spain. He received important commissions in Toledo for the monastery of Santo Domingo el Antiguo and for Toledo Cathedral. Among these early Spanish works was The Disrobing of Christ, usually known as El Espolio.
El Greco also sought royal patronage. He painted The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice for Philip II and the monastery of El Escorial, but the work did not satisfy the king. His hopes for a continuing career at the royal court consequently came to little.
Toledo instead became El Greco's permanent home. The city provided patrons who appreciated his increasingly individual approach to religious painting. He developed a substantial workshop that produced paintings as well as complete ensembles for churches and other religious institutions.
During the 1580s and 1590s his mature style became increasingly recognizable. Figures became elongated and expressive. Space was compressed or transformed. Color and light were used for emotional and spiritual effect rather than simply to describe the visible world.
El Greco continued to receive major religious commissions during the final decades of his life. He also painted portraits and a small number of other subjects. His workshop sometimes produced additional versions of successful compositions.
He died in Toledo in 1614. For a long period after his death, his highly individual style attracted comparatively little admiration. Interest revived during the nineteenth century, and modern artists later found his expressive distortions and unusual treatment of color particularly compelling.