A fuga para o Egito

This is El Greco long before the Spain we associate him with. In 1570 he was a young man of about 29, newly arrived in Rome, having trained first as an icon painter on his native Crete and then in Venice among Titian and the great colourists. This small picture of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt by night still belongs to that Italian moment. It is intimate and jewel-like, made for a private room rather than a church wall. The stretched, flame-like figures of his later Toledo work are nowhere yet. What you can already see is his love of a deep landscape lit by an unnatural glow, something he took from the Venetians.