It has been suggested that the "Opening of the Fifth Seal" served as an inspiration for the early Cubist works of Pablo Picasso, especially "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", which mirrors the expressionistic angularity of the painting. When Picasso was working on "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", he visited his friend Zuloaga in his studio in Paris and studied El Greco's "Opening of the Fifth Seal". The relation between "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" and the "Opening of the Fifth Seal" was pinpointed in the early 1980s, when the stylistic similarities and the relationship between the motifs of both works were analysed. Art historian Ron Johnson was the first to focus on the relationship between the two paintings. According to John Richardson, a British art historian, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" "turns out to have a few more answers to give once we realize that the painting owes at least as much to El Greco as Cézanne".