Saint Francis of Assisi in ecstasy

Around 1600 El Greco ran a crowded workshop in Toledo, and no figure came off its easels more often than Saint Francis. Counter-Reformation Spain wanted images of penitent, praying saints, and the studio produced version after version of the friar to meet the demand, which is why this composition survives in several near-identical forms and why scholars still argue over how much of the Prado's example is by the master's own hand. The scene itself is fixed. Francis kneels in the wilderness of Mount La Verna in 1224, receiving the wounds of Christ. El Greco strips out almost everything around him, leaving a grey habit, a skull, and a face tipped up into a light with no clear source.