General View of Toledo from the Cross of the Canons

The foreground of the composition presents a cross, inscribed at its base with the date and with the painter’s signature, behind which are depicted a few of the buildings belonging to the convent of the Discalced Trinitarians, no longer standing. Some of the city’s most emblematic monuments can be discerned in the background: on a hill to the left, San Servando castle and Alc�ntara bridge over the Tagus river; on the mountainside, the Alc�zar fortress, the tower of the Cathedral and the Jesuit’s dome; and lower down to the right, the Bisagra Door (also known as Door of Charles V) bearing the emperor’s coat of arms. Everything appears bathed in the golden light of dusk and the remoteness is enveloped in a diaphanous atmosphere that confers the impression of mystery the painter captured so well. The light is emphasised by the spirited use of thick impasto brushstrokes. This is one of the best and more typical works of his early Romantic phase, which begun in 1833 under the influence of the Scottish painter David Roberts.