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holy wall and arches were bricked up so that Christian paintings could be added. And since the Christians actually did not believe that Jews and Muslims had actually converted, a Holy Inquisition was established was established to identify dissenters. It was not long after this turbulent period that el Greco arrived in Toledo.

Domenicos Theotokopoulos left Crete to train as an artist in Venice. By 1577 he had settled in Toledo and there he stayed. His unique style, a blend of high Renaissance, Orthodox Church iconography and emerging Mannerism is both instantly recognizable and supremely expressive. His use of light - or often lack of it, since he often painted in the dark gives his canvases a strangely ethereal whiteness which so often seems to stress the humanity and therefore vulnerability of his subjects.

El Greco's work, of course, is represented in major collections throughout the world and, it could be argued, the collection in the Prado far exceeds in importance and sensation what remains in Toledo. But in the city's San Tom church, still in the place for which it was conceived, is the painter's masterpiece, the Burial of Seor Orgaz. It's so well known that the experience of standing before it might provoke dj vu or anti-climax but, like all true masterpieces, it transcends even its own reputation by offering much more than its expectation. Painted in 1586, it depicts the interment of a medieval knight, a resident of Toledo, philanthropist and benefactor of the Sane Tom church. In the foreground, Seor Orgaz's body is laid to rest. Meanwhile, towards the top, his soul is admitted to heaven. Across the entire width of the picture a line of mourners faces serves to separate the worldly lower half from the heavens above. Each person is a unique individual, each offering a different emotional and perhaps political response to the burial. In the swirling heavens above, human gravity has no place. There, everything glows with a cool white light, perhaps suggesting cascades of water rather than flights of passion. And it's the row of human heads, with their intellects perhaps combined, that forms the boundary between the material world below and the ethereal heavens above. A true Renaissance message.

There are other El Greco originals and several copies elsewhere in the city, in Santo Domingo Antiguo, the cathedral, Santa Cruz museum and Tavera museum. Perhaps only the artist himself knows why so many of the people in his paintings have pointed noses. But if

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