View of Toledo

Artist
El Greco
Year
c. 1596-1600
Medium
Oil on canvas

View of Toledo is El Greco’s visionary landscape of the Spanish city where he settled, painted around the turn of the 17th century. With its storm-charged sky, shifting light, and buildings that seem to quiver with spiritual energy, the work departs dramatically from topographical accuracy to become one of the first great subjective landscapes in Western art — a landmark of Mannerism’s expressive intensity.