Doménikos Theotokópoulos (El Greco)

Cretan-born, Venice- and Rome-trained, and finally Spanish: his elongated figures and acid colour belong to no school, which is why Mannerism is the label that ended up on him. Toledo's Counter-Reformation clergy were his patrons, and the strangeness of the work is inseparable from that religious intensity.

• Lived: 1541 CE – 1614 CE
• Nationality: greek
• Roles: painter