Battesimo di Cristo

This comes from the same Madrid commission as several of El Greco's tallest paintings, finished around 1600 for a convent college in the city. By this point, in his late 50s, El Greco had pushed his manner about as far as it would go. The bodies of Christ and John the Baptist stretch and twist, weightless, lit by a cold, unearthly glow that does not seem to come from any single source. Above them heaven presses down almost into the same plane as the earth, so the whole tall canvas reads as one continuous surge upward. Colour is laid on in quick, broken strokes over the powerful anatomy. In the altarpiece it belonged to a set of scenes on the Incarnation of Christ, hanging near El Greco's own Annunciation.