1597, El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Adoration of the Shepherds -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label for this painting and the Baptism of Christ (see separate photo here):
These two canvases are smaller studies for the large altarpiece commissioned by the Augustinian nuns of the Colegio de la Encarnación in Madrid (also known as the Colegio de doña María de Aragón) in 1596. This monumental structure, taken apart in 1813, was built on three overlapping levels, for a total of seven paintings dedicated to the life of Jesus.
El Greco uses the canvases' shape to accentuate the verticality of his figures and of the composition, reaching from the heavens to the earth, from earthly glow to otherworldly splendour. El Greco's brilliant nocturnal epiphanies are illuminated by different lights, allowing us to glimpse, beyond that which is visible, that "other light" which Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross then called upon to illuminate his poem La noche oscura del alma (1579).
1597, El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Adoration of the Shepherds -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label for this painting and the Baptism of Christ (see separate photo here):
These two canvases are smaller studies for the large altarpiece commissioned by the Augustinian nuns of the Colegio de la Encarnación in Madrid (also known as the Colegio de doña María de Aragón) in 1596. This monumental structure, taken apart in 1813, was built on three overlapping levels, for a total of seven paintings dedicated to the life of Jesus.
El Greco uses the canvases' shape to accentuate the verticality of his figures and of the composition, reaching from the heavens to the earth, from earthly glow to otherworldly splendour. El Greco's brilliant nocturnal epiphanies are illuminated by different lights, allowing us to glimpse, beyond that which is visible, that "other light" which Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross then called upon to illuminate his poem La noche oscura del alma (1579).