the spritual in art

El Greco, though considered a Spanish painter, was born in Crete, where flat, elongated Byzantine saints decorated the walls of churches. Many of El Greco’s paintings show people of normal proportions, but when he wanted to emphasize spiritual qualities, he, like his Byzantine forebears, lengthened and distorted. His “St. John the Baptist” stretches upward against the sky, his body well-muscled but impossibly elongated. Light flickers over it. The small head is supported on a strong neck, the fingers arc long and slender. John’s turbulent life and death are also suggested by the bright and ominous clouds.

El Greco - St. John the Baptist (1603)