Tags: Artwork.
The Opening of the Fifth Seal (or The Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse or The Vision of Saint John) was painted in the last years of El Greco’s life for a side-altar of the church of Saint John the Baptist outside the walls of Toledo. Before 1908 El Greco’s painting was referred to as Profane Love. Cossio had doubts about the title and suggested the Opening of the Fifth Seal. The Metropolitan Museum where the painting is kept comments: the picture is unfinished and much damaged and abraded.