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 by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. Born in 1541, in either the village of Fodele or Candia (the Venetian name