The Greek Was Here

This is a picture of the bottom right corner of the painting by Domenikos Theotokoupolis–El Greco–called ‘The Disrobing of Christ‘ (1577), which is in the cathedral of Toledo, Spain. He signed his paintings with ‘cartoline‘, little trompe l’oeil pieces of paper upon which the name of the artist is scrawled, as if pasted on the painting after having been crumpled up in the artist’s pocket for weeks. He wasn’t the first artist to do this. In fact, the Bellini family of painters in Venice had done the same thing in the late 15th century.