Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known to us as El Greco, was one of the seminal figures of the Spanish Golden Age. Born in Crete in 1541 under Venetian rule, raised in the iconographic traditions of Byzantine art, and acquainted with both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic practice, El Greco went to Venice and Rome in the late Renaissance, before finding patronage in Spain at the court of Philip II.

He was a painter not only of religious subjects, but also of idiosyncratic portraits executed in his own uniquely dramatic and expressionistic style. He spent approximately half his life in Toledo, a city with which his name has become indelibly linked, although he was never fully accepted and was known there as a disputatious outsider.

This magnificent, richly illustrated book reproduces many recently cleaned and restored paintings, and reveals hitherto unknown facets of El Greco's art.