David Bowie vs El Greco
Two child prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| David Bowie | El Greco | |
| Field | Film | Art |
| Sub-field | Actor | Painting |
| Born | 1947 | 1541 |
| Died | 2016 | 1614 |
| Country of birth | United Kingdom | Spain |
| Star sign | Capricorn | Libra |
Who they are
David Bowie
On June 6, 1972, a twenty-four-year-old Brixton-born musician named David Robert Jones — performing under the name David Bowie, inhabiting a character he had named Ziggy Stardust — appeared on the BBC television programme Top of the Pops to perform "Starman," draped his arm around his guitarist Mick Ronson's shoulders in a gesture that was, for British television in 1972, practically avant-garde, and stared directly into the camera. The performance reached approximately fifteen million viewers. Within a week, the Ziggy Stardust album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was…
Full biography of David Bowie →
El Greco
Domenikos Theotokopoulos — called El Greco, simply "the Greek," by the Spanish who could not pronounce his name — was born in Crete around 1541. He arrived in the world as a Byzantine icon painter, trained in the flat gold-ground tradition of Eastern Christianity, and ended his life as one of the most radical Western painters who ever lived, a figure so far ahead of his time that the twentieth century had to rediscover him to understand what he had been doing.
What they share
- Both are documented on this site with a verified biography.
Where they part
- Different fields: Film for David Bowie, Art for El Greco.
- Born in different countries: United Kingdom and Spain.
- 406 years separate their births (1947 and 1541).
- Their lifetimes never overlapped.
Questions people ask
- Who came first, David Bowie or El Greco?
- El Greco. David Bowie was born in 1947, El Greco in 1541.
- What field is each of them in?
- David Bowie is filed under Film (Actor). El Greco is filed under Art (Painting).
- Were they contemporaries?
- No - their lifetimes do not overlap.