Greece to Paris, 530 BCE–1890

El Greco

Laocoön

about 1610–14

Oil on canvas, 54 × 68 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington

El Greco (Greek, 1541–1614). Look at the shapes of the bodies: they are stretched long and thin, and their edges flicker.

Look at

• Legs and torsos are pulled out past natural length, so the figures look taller than they could stand.
• The flesh is grey-white with streaks of darker grey, lit from no clear direction.
• The sky is painted in broken, sweeping strokes of blue, grey and white, as restless as the figures.
• The city sits small in the middle distance, in hard little shapes, while the figures loom huge in front.

• The Trojan priest and his sons are attacked by snakes; the city behind is Toledo.

Image: Wikimedia Commons (CC0 file from the National Gallery of Art's open-access release) · CC0