The Tears of Saint Peter

El Greco painted this in Toledo around 1595, in a Spain shaped by the Counter-Reformation. The subject was pointed for its moment. Peter weeps here in remorse after denying that he knew Christ three times, and the Catholic Church in those years pressed hard on exactly this idea of penance and confession, which the Protestant reformers had rejected. A repentant saint in tears was, in effect, an argument. El Greco found the theme so useful, or so moving, that he came back to it at least six times over his career. This is one of those versions, Peter's eyes turned up and wet, his hands clasped, the keys of the church resting beside him.