Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York) acquired as part of his collection by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it still hangs. It is on view in the Met museum's Gallery 818. Christ Carrying the Cross (El Greco, New York) Christ Carrying the Cross is a 1580 painting by El Greco, produced early in his Toledo period in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The picture depicts Christ's sacrifice for mankind as represented by his gentle embrace of the cross and his heavenward gaze. The artist frequently returned to the subject, as seen in works now in Madrid and Barcelona. Its
El Greco of Spanish mysticism". He believes that in El Greco's mature works "the devotional intensity of mood reflects the religious spirit of Roman Catholic Spain in the period of the Counter-Reformation". El Greco also excelled as a portraitist, able not only to record a sitter's features but also to convey their character. His portraits are fewer in number than his religious paintings, but are of equally high quality. Wethey says that "by such simple means, the artist created a memorable characterization that places him in the highest rank as a portraitist, along with Titian and Rembrandt". El Greco painted many of