View of Toledo (original title Vista de Toledo), is one of the two surviving landscapes painted by El Greco, along with View and Plan of Toledo. View of Toledo is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. View of Toledo is among the best known depictions of the sky in Western art, along with Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night and the landscapes of J. M. W. Turner and Claude Monet. Art historian Keith Christiansen included View of Toledo among the artist's most ambitious masterpieces, describing it as one of Western art's most celebrated landscapes. Historical context Dating Art historians, specifically Harold Wethey, have debated the exact dating of View of Toledo. There was some debate among art historians due to early literature that wrote about El Greco. The early literature that Walter Liedtke mentions in "Three Paintings by El Greco," suggests that the View of Toledo was painted after 1600 and shortly before El Greco passed in 1614. However, art historian Harold Wethey believes it was painted between 1595-1600 because of the similarities to El Greco's other piece, Saint Joseph and the Christ Child. Wethey backs up this claim because Saint Joseph and the Christ Child was completed between 1597-1599. Wethey also provides more evidence by pointing out the same techniques used in the background of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child that one can see in View of Toledo. Significance of landscape Landscape paintings were rare among Spanish paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Due to landscape paintings being so rare, some speculate that View of Toledo is actually from a larger painting. However, there has been no valid proof or confirmation to whether that is the case. The Council of Trent's ban against landscape painting lends credence to the idea that this work may stand as the first Spanish landscape painting of its time. Description View of Toledo is a landscape portrait. The painting is vibrant with blues, black, white, and vivid greens. It is made up of all earth tones. Most notable is the distinct color contrast between the darkness of the skies above and the vibrance of green in the hills below. View of Toledo shows viewers an image of darkness, or moodiness that is present in Toledo. Observers can see that the sky grows exceptionally dark near the city. El Greco creates a palette full of dramatic colors. While