The Adoration of the Shepherds (El Greco, Madrid) The Adoration of the Shepherds (El Greco, Madrid) The Adoration of the Shepherds is a painting of the traditional subject which was painted during the last year of El Greco's life. The painting is a work which the artist made to hang over his own tomb in the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. El Greco's signature, in Greek, may be seen in the lower left corner. Extreme distortion of body characterizes the "Adoration of the Shepherds" like all the last paintings of El Greco.The infant Christ seems to emit a light which plays off the faces of
El Greco fallacy abilities. El Greco fallacy The El Greco fallacy is typically a perceptive fallacy, where it is assumed that particular perceptual abnormalities will influence interactions with the world of a similar nature. It is named after an erroneous explanation for the vertically distorted painting style of El Greco, which held that the artist must have seen the world as distorted by a peculiar astigmatism, and thus painted this distorted world. This theoretical astigmatism cannot explain El Greco's style though, as he would have seen his canvases distorted in the same way, and painting onto them would have cancelled out any distortion.