This liberty of composition was only gradually evolved. His earlier work, executed during his first years in Toledo, exhibit traces of his Venetian training. _The Assumption of the Virgin_, which is now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, is in its treatment of the forms and composition still Titianesque; but already the influence of the new environment upon El Greco’s individuality is apparent. He has caught as yet little if any of the mystic fervor, but the types, particularly of the apostles, are local; the draperies are handled broadly and plastically, and the color is no longer of Venetian sumptuousness. The process of dematerialization has begun, which will be carried on until in the great works of the artist’s maturity the Venetian richness of pigment, full of mundane splendor, has entirely disappeared in cool, austere harmonies of blue, lemon and yellow, black, grey, white, olive green and silvery carnation. Touches of warm color occur but they are comparatively rare. Least of all in the great altarpiece does El Greco use color for effects of pageantry or mere decoration. His use is interpretative of spiritual significance. In his portraits it is psychologically expressive.
The latter are mostly half-lengths or busts; grand, pale faces against a sombre background, isolated by a white ruff from the black body on which the white nervous hands are displayed. On the other hand, the portraits of ecclesiastics or imaginary presentation of saints involve a variety of hues. There is a series of such presentments of the apostles in the little Provincial Museum, now established in El Greco’s house. The _S. Bartholomew_ is entirely in white, but the others are bi-colored, showing a robe and mantle, respectively of yellow and blue, yellow-green and red-wine color, grey-blue and orange, grey-blue and apple green, and so on. It is as though the artist had searched for the most unusual and _recherché_ combinations and had compelled them into harmony by the nuances with which he has invested them. Moreover, each is in psychological relation to the head and hands of the subject. Another point to be observed in El Greco’s use of color is that he did not spread his pigment thin over an underpainting of light and dark, but actually modeled in color, obtaining the chiaroscuro by means of values.