Toledo!

This past Friday we took a group excursion to Toledo. I knew that Toledo has played a very important role in the history of Spain. It was the Visigothic capital until the Moors took over. Toledo was also the late home of El Greco and contains many of his paintings. The picture I posted is actually a view of Toledo that El Greco painted many times, however in his paintings he would sometimes move around the location of the cathedral or add famous sites from other city's into the painting. On our excursion we got to see two very famous paintings by El Greco. "Ël Espoilo" was housed inside of Toledo's Gothic cathedral. The other titled "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz" was housed in La Iglesia de Santo Tomé. We had learned a lot about El Greco in my Art and Architecture class, so I was very excited to actually see two of his most famous works up close. I was so proud of myself as I picked out the defining characteristics of El Greco's work in each of the paintings. I saw the specific placement of the hand, the use of acidic colors, the division between heaven and earth, and the spine of some of the characters.