The Easel

Archives: Ana Marcos

19th September 2023

Find six similarities between these two paintings by Picasso and el Greco

The Spanish distained El Greco. The young Picasso (among others) disagreed. His early work was clearly influenced by the 16th century master as well as, it is argued, his seminal cubism. El Greco, with his distorted figures and unreal colour choices, prioritised the psychological over the literal. Analytical cubism similarly used geometric fragments to create a 3D impression of an object in 2D. Says one curator “To me, Cubism seems to have been born with El Greco”.