The Assumption of the Virgin
Domenico Theotokópoulos, called El Greco
1577–79
This painting was the central element of the altarpiece that was El Greco’s first major Spanish commission and first large public work. After living in Venice and Rome, where he absorbed the late Mannerist style, the Greek-born artist settled in the Spanish city of Toledo in 1577 to work on the high altar of the convent church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo. The church of this ancient Cistercian convent was being rebuilt as the funerary chapel of a pious widow, Doña Maria de Silva. In El Greco’s grand design, the Assumption was surmounted by a representation of the Trinity and was flanked by two side altars decorated with paintings of the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Resurrection. The visionary imagery of the Assumption and the Trinity aptly expressed the patron’s hope of salvation. Here the Virgin floats upward, supported on the crescent moon that is symbolic of her purity, while the boldly modeled heads of the crowd of apostles gathered around her empty tomb express amazement and concern. The vigor of El Greco’s broad brushstrokes proclaims the confident achievement of this early work, as does this artist’s large signature in Greek, painted as though affixed to the surface of the picture at the lower right.
| Title | The Assumption of the Virgin |
|---|---|
| Artist | Domenico Theotokópoulos, called El Greco |
| Date | 1577–79 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Style | Renaissance |
| Dimensions | 403.2 × 211.8 cm (158 3/4 × 83 3/4 in.) Weight with frame: 331 lbs/ 150.139 kg |
About Domenico Theotokópoulos, called El Greco
Perhaps most recognized today for his distinctly elongated figures, El Greco developed a unique style that combined the Byzantine traditions of his native Crete; the innovations of the Renaissance masters of Venice and Rome, where he spent nearly a decade of his life; and the religious themes popular in Counter-Reformation Toledo, where the artist finally settled.
Despite his inability to secure the continued patronage of the the archbishopric of Toledo and King Philip II, the two most consequential of artistic patrons in Spain, the deeply ambitious El Greco carved out a local private clientele in Toledo. He found enthusiastic patronage and developed a flourishing career—as a portraitist, a creator of wildly popular religious images for private devotion in the home, and a decorator of important large-scale family altars and chapels.
El Greco’s signature figures are often portrayed with extraordinarily expressive faces and gestures and rendered with beautiful draperies painted in high-keyed colors. While his dramatic style fell out of favor after his death, it is now seen as a forerunner of many 19th- and 20th-century art movements.
A 2020 exhibition at the Art Institute will display the newly restored Assumption of the Virgin—arguably the museum’s most important Old Master painting—and will survey the career of a painter who continually reinvented his practice and developed his remarkable style by consciously maneuvering, in Crete, Venice, Rome, and finally Toledo, in pursuit of career success and a singular artistic vision.