St Peter and St Paul

The museum’s own note reads the picture as an argument made from within: El Greco, it observes, characterises the two apostles less by their attributes than by the unnaturally slender, elongated forms that carry an intensity belonging to gesture and expression as much as to likeness. Paul’s hand rests on a book, alluding to the letters he contributed to the Bible, and the pairing has been understood as an image of the contest between the Reformation and the Catholic response to it. Domenikos Theotokopoulos — El Greco — was trained as an icon painter on Crete before going to Venice and then Rome, and settled in Toledo in 1577; the half-length apostle canvases of his Spanish years, of which this is one, are the works in which the manner he brought from Italy became something no one else painted. It was made about 1605–08 and measures 124 × 93.5 cm. It is held in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.