The Annunciation

El Greco was working in Toledo around 1600, an old Byzantine-trained Greek who had become Counter-Reformation Spain's strangest painter. His workshop turned out this Annunciation and at least six near-identical versions, now scattered from Cuba to Japan, because patrons kept asking for the same design. He stretches Gabriel and Mary into tall, flickering figures that look barely solid, lit by a white burst of the Holy Spirit from above. At Mary's side a lily stands for her purity. The small flaming bush beside her is the burning bush from the story of Moses, a sign of God appearing without being consumed. The flames and the fabric carry the cold greens and acid yellows only he used.