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 he came into contact with the intellectual elite of the city, including the Roman scholar Fulvio Orsini, whose collection would later include seven paintings by the artist ("View of Mt. Sinai" and a portrait of Clovio are among them). Unlike other Cretan artists who had moved to Venice, El Greco substantially altered his style and sought to distinguish himself by inventing new and unusual interpretations of traditional religious subject matter. His works painted in Italy were influenced by the Venetian Renaissance style of the period, with agile, elongated figures reminiscent of Tintoretto and a chromatic framework that connects him to