Architects From Greece

"..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."

"..by a Dominico Greco.. ..who paints excellent things in Toledo, is a painting of Saint Maurice and his soldiers, which he made for the altar of the Saints, and is now in the Chapter House; it did not please His Majesty, but that is not surprising, for it pleased few, although it is said it is of much art and that there are many excellent things by his hand."

"[El Greco liked] the colors crude and unmixed in great blots as a boastful display of his dexterity.. ..he believed in constant repainting and retouching in order to make the broad masses tell flat as in nature."

"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."

"Who will believe me if I say that Dominico Greco set his hand to his canvases many and many times over, that he worked upon them again and again.. ..but to leave the colours crude and unblent in great blots, as a boastful display of his dexterity. I call this working in order to accomplish little."

"On 7th April, 1614, died Domenico Greco. He left no will. He received the sacraments, was buried in Santo Domingo el Antiguo; and gave candles."

"Out of the great esteem he was held in he was called the Greek (il Greco)."

"Mancini reports that El Greco said to the Pope [in Rome] that if the whole work [Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel] was demolished, he himself would do it in a decent manner and with seemliness."

"one of the greatest men in both this [Spanish] kingdom and outside it."

"Crete gave him life and the painter's craft, Toledo a better homeland, where through Death he began to achieve eternal life."

"A 'Gloria' by Domineko Greco, among the best which he painted, although still with great want of harmony in the colours, though here there is some excuse, for to paint the Glory of God it is not easy to find suitable colours, for the most vivid cannot attain to the signification of the strength of that supreme Majesty, neither seen nor heard of men."

"At that time, there came from Italy a painter called Dominico Greco.. .He settled in the famous and ancient city of Toledo, introducing such an extravagant style that to this day nothing has been seen to equal it; attempting to discuss it would cause confusion in the soundest minds; his works being so dissimilar that they do not seem to be by the same hand. He came to this city with a high reputation, so much so that he gave it to be understood that there was nothing superior to his works. In truth, he achieved some works which are worthy of estimation, and which can be put amongst those of famous painters. His nature was extravagant like his painting. It is not known with certainty what he did with his works, as he used to say no price was high enough for them, and so he gave them in pledge to their owners who willingly advanced him what he asked for. He earned many ducats, but spent them in too great pomp and display in his house, to the extent of keeping paid musicians to entertain him at meal-times. His works were many, but the only wealth he left were two hundred unfinished paintings; he reached an advanced age, always enjoying great fame. He was a famous architect, and very eloquent in his speeches. He had few disciples, as none cared to follow his capricious and extravagant style, which was only suitable for himself."

"Our painter's very name [El Greco] is uncertain. To his contemporaries he was known as the Greco, the difficult Theotocopuli, barbarous to the Spaniards, being disregarded; and up to the end of the eighteenth century no one writes of him except as Dominico Greco. Pacheco, Palomino, Giuseppe Martinez and other native writers, who mention his work, use this name. It is also the name found in the Inventories of the palace, the registers of Toledo, and the indices of public writings."

"In his picture of 'St Paul the Apostle' in the sacristy of Toledo cathedral, and also in all the known replicas of the picture, the epistle which the saint holds in his hands bears the inscription in Greek: 'Upos TLTOV TYjS XPlTtoV 'E'xxX.rfiias irpuTOV C7rt O"ypirov yeipoTOveOevra' (translation: Titus ordained the first bishop of the Cretans)."

"Even more important ... is the splendid seated full-length of Don Fernando Neno de Guevara, Inquisitor and Archbishop of Seville. ... Greco never indicated character more vitally and surely. The execution is that of his best period; that in which, his age and his genius having both come to maturity, he was completely master of his medium. Compare this great, almost unknown, portrait with the famed 'Innocent X.' of Velazquez - the colour is the same - a wonderful combination of reds and whites - the technique is alike, and further, the spirit of the two pictures is the same. No one can remain in doubt of the influence that Greco exercised over his great successor. The question forces itself upon us - Can Velazquez have seen this portrait?"

"We refer with pleasure and with steadfastness to the case of El Greco, because the glory of this painter is closely tied to the evolution of our new perceptions on art"

"We need to understand what we can do and how. Otherwise we will never do it."

"We now open our eyes, we see the explosion, we understand the confusion and its causes, we have an exact diagnosis of our disease and we can begin the therapy, not by nervous and uncoordinated magical solutions, but by properly conceiving and trying to build the Entopia we badly need."

"To the right I see the forces which lead to dystopia. It is the big corporation which built the tower on top of the small hill which tells me: "Fly ABC Fortresses!" Airplanes have to be built like fortresses to avoid skyjacking attacks by the passengers."

"The big mistake most commonly made today is that when we speak of transportation we think only of persons and goods. We forget the existence of water, clean or otherwise, moving in pipes, of gas, oil, electricity, messages, the telephones etc. The result is that we waste a lot of space and Networks."

"Our Networks are not unified."

"I begin with the clarification that I consider Society as a total system of relationships between people which are either visible or invisible and which form networks."

"If we have the most perfect neighborhoods without proper connections between them we do not have a city, but nomadic life in a jungle."

"Ecumenopolis is under way, but we lack the overall concept and the courage to guide Ecumenopolis rather than just letting it happen by chance and necessity."

"My conclusion is that today we are in chaos as far as the metropolis is concerned and do not do anything in the right direction."

"We now have several hundred metropolises and they all suffer in many ways from many problems because they have not been foreseen and properly conceived."

"we forget that the polis, no matter whether old or new, has its own dimensions and its own scale; and if we impose on it solutions corresponding to larger scales, we do it a lot of harm and we destroy all its values."

"The fact that the super-markets and super shops have developed and serve wider areas of tens of thousands of people does not mean that we do not need smaller ones."

"At present the machines are in control and no human values are respected."

"We should not forget that the value of seeing lies in the information capacity of vision."

"We should never forget that values of the past are first overlooked when a change is necessary, but later they are understood and re-established."

"If we do not understand furniture we cannot understand the city,"

"From the balance of the past, we have been lea to the great injustice of the present."

"The social aspect in city building is now completely overlooked."

"When people like Genghis Khan tried to speed up the rhythm and conquer and organize a continent in a few generations, they did not create a synthesis, they only courted disasters."

"When we speak of quality and desirability it is not the question of one unit, but of the whole system."

"When we build a city we must answer the most basic question as for any type of project: who is the master whom we have to serve?"

"When we place all these extraordinary achievements together, however we can see where we have failed: by bringing together all the elements of progress into a meaningless and inhuman system of life."

"Dimensions are not connected with the efficiency of the system; they simply make it more difficult."

"Conclusion: Because humanity has entered a new era of science and industry, Ecumenopolis is as inevitable as the village after the agricultural revolution."

"The real city is the whole territory within which people move every day."

"The realistic view of the City of the Future accepts that it will be a global city."