St James

El Greco made this near the end of his life in Toledo, one of a set of apostles he and his workshop produced showing Christ and the 12. It is thought to be James the Greater, but the figure holds none of the usual attributes, no pilgrim's staff or shell, and some scholars have wondered whether it is really James the Younger instead. What everyone agrees on is the handling: the long dragged brushstrokes, the cool light catching the face and hands, the strange inward expression. By the early 1600s El Greco had spent decades in Toledo working in a style so personal that it left no real followers, and pictures like this were made for Spanish churches, this series for one at Almadrones, northeast of Madrid.