A painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance.

He was born in Crete, at that time part of the Republic of Venice and the center of Post-Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before traveling at the age of 26 to Venice and then to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, he enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, he received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings.

His dramatic and expressionistic style puzzled his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century and became regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting.