Благовещение

El Greco painted the Annunciation again and again across his years in Toledo, the angel Gabriel arriving to tell Mary she will bear Christ, the dove of the Holy Spirit breaking through the light above them. This version dates from around 1600, when he was running a busy workshop turning out altarpieces for Spanish churches. The figures are stretched and flickering, lit by a cold, unnatural glow, with lilies for Mary's purity set between the two of them. He had trained on icons in Crete and among the great colourists of Venice before settling in Spain, and both worlds show here, in the gold-touched unreality of the scene. The composition follows the large altar Annunciation he made for a college church in Madrid.