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A study of El Greco's "Agony in the Garden" (40E) (sometimes referred to as the "Mount of Olives," which is in the National Gallery in London, will reveal that Picasso used this painting in developing the composition. He placed his figures on a framework suggested by the El Greco painting. Rutter tells us that "El Greco was rediscovered by Cezanne" and that Cezanne was "attracted by the three-dimensional design of El Greco. Cezanne, himself an extremist in some respects, was insidiously drawn towards the extreme mannerism in the works of El Greco's last period. On these late works, rather than on the masterpieces of Greco's middle period, Cezanne based much of his own practice." Thus Picasso, in studying Cezanne, could quite naturally have recalled El Greco whom we know Picasso had never really abandoned as a master. (Rutter 2)

Leo Steinberg quoted Picasso as saying that El Greco's pictures were already cubist in structure (Picasso qtd. in Steinberg 131).

Barr wrote "As the painting the "Demoiselles" developed it is also possible that memories of El Greco's compact figure composition and the angular highlights of his draperies, rocks and clouds may have confirmed the suggestions drawn from Cezanne." Barr reproduced the lower half of El Greco's "Assumption of the Virgin" to illustrate his statement (Barr 54 and 256).

Gomez de la Serna, a Spanish writer and friend to Picasso at this time, recalled that Picasso's walls at the "Bateau Lavoir", where Picasso lived and worked, were decorated with reproductions of El Greco's work (de la Serna 6-7).

By comparing Picasso's "Demoiselles" with the "Agony in the Garden" by El Greco we can discover at least forty-five segments which parallel. These segments have been numbered in order to make it easier to locate them in the diagrams (40F) and (40G) and to facilitate the commentary which follows:

1. The unusual position of the hand in (40F) spread like feathers in the pinion of the angel of (40G).

2. In this area, Picasso has adapted the cloud forms of (40G) but retained the highlights on the clouds.

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