Burial of the Count of Orgaz

Completed between 1587 and 1588, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz stands as El Greco's supreme achievement and one of the great masterpieces of Western painting. Oil on canvas at a monumental 480 by 360 centimetres, it was commissioned by the parish priest of Santo Tomé church in Toledo, Spain, where it still hangs today. The work illustrates a 14th-century legend in which Saints Augustine and Stephen miraculously descended from heaven to personally inter the pious Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo, lord of Orgaz. El Greco divides the canvas into two distinct registers — the earthly realm below, crowded with the black-clad Spanish nobles of his own era, and a luminous celestial vision above where Christ, the Virgin, and an assembly of saints receive the count's soul. The transition between worlds is handled with extraordinary fluency, with the arched back of a gold-robed saint bridging heaven and earth. El Greco includes himself among the mourners and places his young son Jorge Manuel at the lower left, the boy pointing outward as though drawing the viewer into the scene. A tour de force of Mannerist elongation, dramatic chiaroscuro, and Byzantine-inflected spirituality, it remains permanently installed in the church for which it was created.