The Heavens Opened. El Greco in Rome

The splendid Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone in Piazza Navona hosts the exhibition that sees protagonists three evocative works by the Spanish Renaissance painter, never before displayed outside Spain.

The free event, part of The Jubilee is Culture, the program of cultural initiatives in preparation for the Jubilee 2025, represents an extraordinary opportunity to admire El Greco's masterpieces and his dramatic and spiritual art, distinguished by intense colours and elongated figures with abstract characteristics.

Inside the church - also created with the intervention of Francesco Borromini, one of the masters of the Baroque - are on display three works belonging to private collections: The Holy Family with Saint Anne (Toledo, Hospital de Tavera), realised between 1590 and 1595, which depicts the Virgin in her human nature, breastfeeding Jesus, with saints Joseph and Anna, husband and mother of Mary, adoring the Child and admiring Virgin Mary's sanctity; The Baptism of Christ (Toledo, Hospital de Tavera), the large canvas painted between 1608 and 1614, completed in some details by his son Jorge Manuel, with the representation of the Holy Trinity at the moment of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River by John Baptist; Christ Carrying the Cross (El Bonillo, Museo Paroquial), dated between 1590 and 1595, one of the artist's most brilliant creations, in which Christ, standing and crowned with thorns, is represented with the thin face, glassy eyes almost wet with tears, against a dark sky with glimpses of light.

Known as El Greco, Domínikos Theotokópoulos was born in 1541 in Heraklion, on the island of Crete, then under the rule of the Republic of Venice. Before moving to Spain, where he died in Toledo in 1614, he lived in Italy. Before, he moved to Venice, where he studied and admired the paintings of great artists such as Titian, Tintoretto and Bassano, and then to Rome. He stayed in the Eternal City for some years, first at the court of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and then as a free painter.

Image: Jubilee of 2025 Press Office, The Jubilee is Culture - El Greco