El Greco

"I hold the imitation of colour to be the greatest difficulty of art."

"[El Greco confined to his bed] holding, believing and confessing the Faith of the Holy Church of Rome in whose Faith I have lived and die, as a faithful and Catholic Christian because of the gravity of my sickness I was unable to make a will and gives power to Jorge Manuel Teotocopuli my son, and of Dona Jerónima de las Cuevas [his wife he never married], who is a person of honesty and virtue [to make his testament, arrange his burial, and pay his debts, and the] remainder of my possessions to go to Jorge Manuel, as universal heir"

"..There has arrived in Rome a young man [El Greco] from Candia [Crete], a disciple of Titian, who in my opinion is a painter of rare talent; among other things he has painted a portrait of himself, which causes wonderment to all the painters in Rome. I should like him to be under the patronage of your Illustrious and Reverend Lordship, without any other contribution towards his living than a room in the Farnese Palace for some little time, until he can find other accommodation. I therefore beg and pray you to have the kindness to write to Count Lodovico, your Majordomo, to provide him with some room near the top in the said Palace; your Illustrious Lordship will be doing a virtuous deed worthy of you, and I shall feel very grateful.. .The most humble servant, Julio Clovio."

"..he [[w:Michelangelo|[= Michelangelo] ]] was a good man, but he did not know how to paint."

"..because in this way the form will be perfect and not reduced, which is the worst thing that can happen to a figure."

"If Vasari really knew the nature of the Greek style of which he speaks, he would deal with it differently in what he says. He compares it with Giotto, but what Giotto did is simple in comparison, because the Greek style is full of ingenious difficulties [= translation of Greek art historian Nicos Hadjinicolau] / full of deceptive difficulties. [= translation of Spanish art historians Xavier de Salas and Fernando María]."

"Now, in order to claim some knowledge of painting, Vitruvius speaks of the consideration of the perfect human body and about how good sculptors and painters in order to make it give it a height of ten faces, and I say that according to them they have read and they say that this proportion is based on knowledge of measurement and that it happens that without it it is not possible to have proportion or consideration because those who are not cognizant of this do not count."

"El Greco showed me in 1611 a cupboard full of clay models made by him to serve him in his work, and, a marvel beyond compare, the originális of every picture he had ever painted in his life, all in oils, on smaller canvasses, collected together in a hall which his son showed me by his orders."

"I am neither bound to say why I came to this city nor to answer the other questions put to me."

"..foreigners flock to see and admire the painting, and the citizens of Toledo never tire of seeing it, as there is always something new to see, for here is portrayed, very life-like, the notable men of our time."

"Anyway, I would not be happy to see a beautiful, well-proportioned woman, no matter from which point of view, however extravagant, not only lose her beauty in order to, I would say, increase in size according to the law of vision, but no longer appear beautiful, and, in fact, become monstrous."

"Once in Spain, El Greco was able to create a style of his own - one that disavowed most of the descriptive ambitions of painting. Obviously his portraits involved precise observation, but the settings tend to be spectral."