"Christ Healing the Blind"

El Greco painted this triumph of dramatic storytelling either in Venice or Rome; its palette, figure types, and paint handling bear the influence of Venetian Renaissance artists, notably Paolo Veronese. It shows Christ healing a blind man whose parents seem to be behind him. The canvas’s upper left portion is unfinished. The architectural stage set is typical of El Greco’s compositions before he largely did away with efforts at spatial structure in his later work. He made two other versions of the subject, but he may have brought this one with him when he left Italy for Spain in 1576.