This article is introduced with a statement about the author’s involvement with El Greco studies and her attempts to understand the manifestation of mysticism in his art. The research focusses on the visual experience of two different kinds of beholders in El Greco’s oeuvre: the virtual backturned figures in paintings beholding a vision as part of the representations, and the beholders in real space viewing the complete paintings. The presentation in each of the seven works discussed is mediated by an internal backturned beholder, forming a nodal figure in the composition, who views a mystical vision as the main theme presented in the painting, while the beholder in real space views the beholding backturned figure, his vision and the total composition.