Saints Peter and Paul

El Greco painted this in Toledo somewhere between 1587 and 1592, and he built it entirely on a contrast between two men. On the left stands Peter, the apostle who denied knowing Christ three times on the night of the arrest, soft-eyed and uncertain, his hand half raised. On the right is Paul, once a fierce persecutor of Christians before his conversion, leaning in hard with a firm hand pressed to the table. Their gestures meet at the centre of the canvas, as if the two temperaments were arguing something out. El Greco returned to this pairing more than once. Other versions of the same two saints hang today in Barcelona and Stockholm.