Der heilige Johannes der Täufer und der heilige Johannes der Evangelist

El Greco was born on Crete and trained partly in Venice, but he spent his last decades in Toledo, the old spiritual capital of Spain, and it was there around 1600 that he painted these two saints named John. On one side stands John the Baptist, gaunt from the desert. On the other, John the Evangelist, younger and calm, holding the cup that is his usual sign. By this point El Greco had pushed his figures tall and flamelike, their bodies stretched far beyond anything you would see in a mirror, set against a stormy, restless sky. It was a manner so personal that after his death it fell out of favour for nearly 300 years, until modern painters found him again.