Tears of Saint Peter

Peter had sworn he would never abandon Jesus, and then, on the night of the arrest, he denied knowing him three times before the cock crowed. This is the morning after. El Greco shows the apostle alone on a rock, hands clasped, his eyes lifted and wet, the heavy keys of heaven still hanging at his side. He returned to this subject again and again, painting some nine versions across his years in Spain. The reason lies in the Church of his day. The Counter-Reformation, Rome's answer to the spread of Protestantism, had put confession back at the centre of Catholic life, and a repentant Peter, the first pope shown weeping over his own sin, suited that mood exactly. El Greco is often credited as the first to give Peter's remorse a picture of its own, instead of tucking it into a larger Passion scene. Behind the saint the sky breaks into the pale, restless light he favoured, and the keys catch it.