"The painter's 'modernism' is largely attributed to the fact that he embraced Italian artistic theory and utilized the recipes of Venetian studios. What has been observed in his work from both positive and negative perspectives over four centuries – the lack of symmetry, the distortion of proportions, the violations of iconographic tradition, the denial of space, the work with color spots on the canvas – originates from his Italian experiences and his 'apprenticeship' there.

When he was in Italy, during the 1560s and 1570s, the Renaissance was already a distant dream. There is no reason to praise a painter who came from a different cultural tradition, particularly regarding the perception of the 'image', for having so radically rejected the Renaissance tenets of painting. Anyway, others had come before him.

Regarding the rejection of the Renaissance, one need only think of what painters like Pontormo, Rosso, or Beccafumi accomplished in Tuscany, who died when El Greco had not yet emerged from his teenage years. However, one can recognize the consistency and the power with which he continued and broadened what he had learned in Venice and Rome in Spain, resulting in works of unparalleled boldness.

Isolated in Toledo, the painter, more instinctively than in a programmatic and systematic manner, conducted experiments unthinkable for the society in which he lived. The creative role of his isolation should not be underestimated. It was, in more ways than one, a motivation, the stable spring of his action.

The core of his modernism, from both a social and aesthetic perspective, can be considered the claim (not with words and concepts on paper but with the act of painting) of the right that the artist/producer, as a creator, has to 'play' at will with the constituent elements of the image."