Cretan school

The Cretan school was the post-Byzantine tradition of icon painting that flourished on Crete under Venetian rule, roughly from the sixteenth century until the Ottoman conquest of Candia in 1669. Cretan painters worked in the Byzantine iconographic tradition but absorbed the art of their Venetian rulers: Renaissance modeling, perspective, richer color, and dramatic light entered the gold-ground icon without displacing its sacred types. Crete's workshops supplied icons to Orthodox churches and monasteries and to Western buyers, and their panels traveled throughout the Mediterranean. The school's most famous pupil, Domenikos Theotokopoulos - El Greco - trained in the Cretan manner before studying in Venice and Rome and remaking himself in Spain. Signed panels by masters such as Michael Damaskenos show how deliberately the two traditions were blended.

Defining characteristics

• Byzantine gold grounds and fixed iconographic types fused with Renaissance modeling
• Rich, saturated color and dramatic light and shadow
• Tempera on wood panels, often signed by the master
• Architectural settings and drapery folds borrowed from Venetian painting
• Cool highlights and stylized, rhythmic lines in face and cloth

Key figures

• El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) (1541-1614) — Cretan-born master who carried the school's Byzantine-Venetian blend to Spain
• Michael Damaskenos (c. 1535-1592) — Leading Cretan icon painter of the Venetianizing manner

Example works

• Dormition of the Virgin — El Greco (c. 1565)
• Adoration of the Magi — Michael Damaskenos (late 16th century)

Sources

• Cretan school - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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