Dalí/El Greco: Christ on the Cross
Spanish Gallery, Bishop Auckland

They’re separated by 350 years, and via a journey that takes in Crete, Italy, Spain, Glasgow and County Durham. But what unites these two paintings is far stronger than what separates them, and the unusual patchwork of geography around them has only added to their story.

The unifying factor between the two paintings is the subject, and it is the most solemn subject in Western art: the Crucifixion. The older of the two works is by the Cretan Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541-1614) known as “El Greco”: he was an icon painter before moving to Venice, where he seems to have spent time working with Titian. The work dates from between 1600 and 1610, by which time El Greco had moved to Spain, and had painted for Philip II.