The Adoration of the Shepherds

El Greco painted this Adoration of the Shepherds in the last years of his life, around 1605 to 1610, in Toledo. He was in his sixties, still producing paintings at a furious pace, and he had returned to the subject of the Nativity several times throughout his career. This is one of the last versions. The Virgin Mary kneels at the center, her hands clasped in prayer, looking down at the Christ child who lies on a white cloth on the ground. Joseph stands behind her at the left, and three shepherds lean in from the right, their faces lit by the supernatural light that emanates from the child. The figures are elongated, their bodies twisted in the serpentine poses that El Greco made his signature. The sky above is a swirl of yellow and white, with angels visible in the upper clouds. El Greco was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete in 1541. He trained as an icon painter in the Byzantine tradition, then went to Venice, where he studied under Titian and absorbed the Venetian use of color. He moved to Rome, then to Toledo in 1577, where he spent the rest of his life. His style is a fusion of Byzantine icon painting, Venetian color, and the elongated figures of Roman Mannerism, and it has no real parallel in European art. He was largely forgotten for 250 years after his death, then rediscovered by the modernists. Cezanne and Picasso both studied his work. The painting is tall and narrow, 57 by 40 inches. The composition is built on the vertical axis of the Christ child at the center, with the figures arranged in an arc around him. The light source is internal: the child glows with a white-gold light that illuminates the faces of the shepherds and the Virgin from below. The background is dark, almost black, with the sky visible only in the upper portion. Oil on canvas, 145 by 101 centimeters. El Greco painted with thin, rapid brushwork, using long strokes for the draperies and small flicks of color for the faces. The surface is smooth but the paint is applied in visible layers, with the dark ground showing through in places. The colors are his typical palette: deep blues, acid greens, yellow-white highlights, and warm reds. The tall vertical format and dramatic lighting make this print work well in a hallway, entryway, or beside a tall window. The dark background means it reads well in low light. A dark wood or black frame matches the painting's tonal range. The 16x20 or 18x24 size gives the faces and the angels enough detail to appreciate. The painting came to the Met through the Jules Bache Collection in 1949. This is a public domain artwork (CC0), scanned from the original at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.