Author, Lecturer, Broadcaster & Cultural Arts Expert;
President of Art Collage JANG/J Music/J Art/J Books & Media.
Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
Dedicated to sharing insights into art, culture, literature, and creative expression through writing, lectures, media, and content creation.
I uploaded my eighth music broadcast on “Spoon Radio.”
The theme of this week's eighth broadcast is the music of “Greece,”
a country of civilization and mythology, represented by olives, Greek salad,
and Greek coffee, among world music genres.
In this broadcast, I introduced “Rembetika,” which represents Greek
popular music, as well as great Greek composers and notable Greek musicians.
You can listen to my broadcast by clicking the link below.
Produced by: Eleni Smaragdi, Raimon Masllorens,
Dénes Szekeres, Georgios Fragkos
Screenplay:Jackie Pavlenko, Yannis Smaragdis
Cinematography:
Aris Stavrou
Music:Vangelis
Editor:Giannis Tsitsopoulos
Cast
Nick Ashdon as El Greco
Juan Diego Botto as Fernando Niño
de Guevara
Laia Marull as Jeronima de las
Cuevas
Lakis Lazopoulos as Nicolos
Dimitra Matsouka as Francesca
Sotiris Moustakas as Titian
Nick Ashdon
Laia Marull
Summary
“El Greco” is a Greek
biographical film about the life of Domenicos Theotokopoulos, the Greek painter
of the Spanish Renaissance, better known as El Greco.
Portrait of a Man (self-portrait), El Greco (c.1595–1600)
The film is based on the
fictionalized biographical novel, “El Greco: o Zografos tou Theou (El Greco:
the Painter of God)," written by Dimitris Siatopoulos. It was directed by
Yannis Smaragdis and written by Jackie Pavlenko, starred Nick Ashdon as El
Greco.
Plot
This film tells a fictitious story
of Domenicos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco, the great Greek artist
of the 16th century.
In this film, he appears as an uncompromising character,
who sets off his homeland Crete and goes to Venice and finally Toledo, in
search of freedom and love. There he confronts his greatest enemy, the Spanish
Inquisition, but his creative consciousness and power make him stand out and
overcome barbarity and ignorance.
Opening of the Fifth Seal, El Greco (1608–1614)
Domenicos, who is imprisoned and
awaiting execution by the Spanish Inquisition, writes his story and thus parts
of his life unfold as flashbacks.
Born on the island of Crete, which was then
part of the Republic of Venice, Domenicos falls in love with Francesca,
daughter of the Venetian governor of Crete.
However, his father is preparing
for a political rebellion, and as a result Domenicos leaves the island and
moves to Venice. There he meets the famous painter Titian and the Spanish
priest Fernando Niño de Guevara. (Continue)
Titian
Fernando Niño de Guevara
Movie
Review
“It is worth the cinema”
“Music &
Cinematography excellent”
“A great film for a
legendary artist”
“Spiritual perfume”
“Decent sketch”
Interesting
stories about the film
1. This film was the last acting
performance of Sotiris Moustakas starred as Titian.
Sotiris Moustakas
2. Sotiris Moustakas agreed to
participate in the film only if he was not getting paid, because he knew he
would soon die.
3. The soundtrack for this film was
conducted by the Greek musician Vangelis.
Vangelis
The film's soundtrack album is the
third project by Vangelis regarding El Greco, following the album “Foros Timis
Ston Greco” released in 1995 and the extended version of the album with three
more tracks, “El Greco (1998)”.
Influenced on:Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Franz Marc
Teachers:
Titian
Doménikos
Theotokópoulos, best known as El Greco, was a Greek painter, sculptor and
architect of the Spanish Renaissance, who was born on October 1, 1541 and died
on April 7, 1614.
Byzantine chapel at Fodele, Crete, Greece, where El Greco was born
His nickname "El Greco" denotes his Greek origin,
and he normally signed his paintings with his birth name in Greek letters, “Δομήνικος
Θεοτοκόπουλος”,
and often added “Κρής Krēs”,
meaning Cretan, to his signature.
El
Greco was born in the Kingdom of Candia (now Crete), which was then part of the
Republic of Venice and the center of Post-Byzantine art.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Byzantine icon of 13th or 14th century
He moved to Rome in
1570, where he opened a workshop and created a series of works. During his stay
in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the
Venetian Renaissance, influenced by a number of great artists of the time,
especially Tintoretto.
Tintoretto
In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and
worked for the rest of his life and he commissioned and completed several
important works that became his most famous paintings.
El
Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style of paintings was embarrassing to his
contemporaries, but in the 20th century they were appreciated.
While he is
regarded as a pioneer of Expressionism and Cubism, his personality and works
have been a source of inspiration for poets and writers such as Rainer Maria
Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Nikos Kazantzakis
He is most famous for his unusually elongated
figures and fantastic pigmentation based on Byzantine traditions with those of
Western painting.
