El Greco - The Vision of St. John

El Greco - The Vision of Saint John

Oil on canvas. ca 1609-14. 87 1/2 x 76in. (222.3 x 193cm); with added strips 88 1/2 x 78 1/2 in. (224.8 x 199.4 cm) [top truncated]
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436576?rpp=30&pg=1&ft=el+greco+(domenikos+theotokopoulos)&pos=3

El Greco was a Greek artist whose painting and sculpture helped define the Spanish Renaissance and influence various movements to come. (http://www.biography.com/people/el-greco-9319123)

"The painting is a fragment from a large altarpiece commissioned for the church of the hospital of Saint John the Baptist in Toledo. It depicts a passage in the Bible, Revelation (6:9-11) describing the opening of the Fifth Seal at the end of time, and the distribution of white robes to "those who had been slain for the work of God and for the witness they had borne." The missing upper part may have shown the Sacrificial Lamb opening the Fifth Seal. The canvas was an iconic work for twentieth-century artists and Picasso, who knew it in Paris, used it as an inspiration for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon." [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436576?rpp=30&pg=1&ft=el+greco+(domenikos+theotokopoulos)&pos=3]

This piece wields a striking use of form to represent people in great want of salvation. It also utilizes movement in a way that makes it seem like the sky is cracking open and the winds are howling.
This piece is featured because it highlights the primordial fear: the fear of disappearance. The end of time is upon the people inside the scene, and you can see the fear and want of salvation in their faces and bodily expressions.