El descubrimiento del Greco. Nacionalismo y arte moderno (1860-1914)

The rapid rise in appreciation for El Greco more than three centuries after his death (1614) is one of the most interesting and spectacular phenomena in modern studies on Old Masters of painting and in the twentieth-century art market. Although celebrated for some of his altarpieces during his own lifetime, the Cretan soon slipped almost into oblivion and until well into the nineteenth century he was reviled his extravagances and unsettling elongated figures, which could only be the product—or so it was thought—of an unsound mind. However, around 1860 El Greco gained unusual prominence. His return to fame began with impressionists such as Manet and Degas, who considered him ahead of his time on account of his personal aesthetic language, his bold use of colour and his originality. They were followed by art historians, among them Justi and Cossío, and painters who even hailed him as one of the chief forerunners of their avant-garde oeuvre, among them Picasso and Kandinsky.