El Greco

Why do his figures stretch toward the ceiling like flickers of a dying candle? This "Greek" in Spain ignored the proportions of the earth to capture the proportions of the spirit. "I paint because the spirits whisper that the world is taller than it looks," he seemed to say through his elongated, distorted forms. He is the bridge between the Renaissance and the Modern, a man who used "acidic" colors to depict a reality that was melting under the heat of divine fervor. To look at his work is to experience a visual vertigo, a reminder that the soul does not fit neatly into a human frame.