Christus mit dem Kreuz

El Greco made this in Toledo, the Spanish cathedral city where he settled after leaving Crete and Italy, and it belongs to the world of the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic Church wanted images that stirred private devotion. Rather than show Christ struggling under the weight of the cross on the road to Calvary, he shows him embracing it, upright and calm, his eyes lifted, dressed only in the traditional red tunic. It was made to be prayed with rather than admired, a face to meet at close range. The subject clearly answered a need, because El Greco and his workshop repeated it many times for Toledo's churches and households. Look at the hands, the long slender fingers laid along the wood, the bones showing through, the nails rendered with unusual care.