It is for the first time that the elective affinity between early Expressionism and El Greco is examined with direct reference to originals and that the phenomenon of an Old Master becoming the catalyst of a young avantgarde art movement is illustrated this vividly. The Kunstpalast wants to reveal the multifaceted levels on which exponents of Expressionism concerned themselves with El Greco’s pictorial world. In the process, attention is paid to the genres of religious painting as well as portrait and landscape painting. A wealth of works tell us of the profound fascination which, quite astonishingly from today’s perspective, El Greco exerted on artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer, Max Beckmann, Ludwig Meidner (all born in the 1880s) and others.
