Dormition of the Virgin 1566

El Greco painted "Dormition of the Virgin" using egg tempera on wood during his time in Crete. The composition immediately strikes you with its dense arrangement. Figures are packed tightly around the Virgin’s deathbed. Notice how the artist uses colour to direct your eye. Earthy tones dominate, but strategic highlights of whites and yellows draw attention to key figures and evoke an ethereal quality. This painting predates El Greco's more mannerist works in Spain, but you can already see how he plays with Byzantine conventions. Here the figures are elongated, the space compressed. These choices aren't accidental. El Greco is using formal elements to convey spiritual intensity. The compressed space and flattened perspective challenge our conventional understanding, pushing us to consider the painting as a symbolic rather than a literal representation.