EL GRECO From Italy to Toledo

VISIBLE IMAGE

El Greco used architectural elements to spatially arrange his figures. The vanishing point where the lines of the flooring tiles converge is positioned on the imaginary vertical axis yet approximately 10 centimetres lower than the horizontal axis. This device has the effect of elevating the figures above the viewer's eye level. The academic canon and the extraordinary luminosity and colours are typical of this period. Curiously, the hand that the Virgin rests on the Scriptures is slightly out of proportion.