400th Anniversary of the Death of Domínikos Theotokópoulos

Portrait of Dominikos Theotokopoulos. In the background, a figure study characteristic of the painter's technique. On the left, the year 2014 and his signature ("Dominikos Theotokopoulos Epoiei") are engraved; on the right, the mark of the Greek mint. Arranged in a circle around the design, the inscription "DOMINIKOS THEOTOKOPOULOS 1541–1614" and the name of the issuing state "HELLENIC REPUBLIC" appear in Greek.

Domínikos Theotokópoulos is one of the most idiosyncratic painters in European art history. Born around 1541 on Crete, then under Venetian rule, he first learned Byzantine icon painting before travelling to Venice and then Rome, where he came into contact with Mannerist painting. He achieved his true fame, however, in Spain: from 1577 he lived and worked in Toledo, where he remained until his death in 1614. There he became known under the nickname "El Greco" — the Greek — a name that preserved his origins while also marking his singular position within late-16th and early-17th-century Spanish painting.

His work bears an unmistakable signature: elongated figures, expressive use of light, intense colour and a spiritual urgency that sets it clearly apart from the naturalistic tendency of his contemporaries. Above all his religious compositions and portraits made him one of the most important representatives of Mannerism in Europe. Long after his death, El Greco fell into obscurity before being rediscovered by modernism — the Expressionists foremost among them — as a forerunner of their own visual language. For Greece, he is a central reference point of national art history: a Cretan whose work mediates between Byzantine tradition and Western European painting, and whose influence extends into the present. In 2014, the 400th anniversary of his death was commemorated.