Santiago el Menor

El Greco painted whole sets of the 12 apostles for the churches of Toledo, the Spanish city where he settled after leaving his native Crete by way of Italy. This is James the Less, one of that series, shown half-length, his fingers long and tapering, his face lit against a dark ground. By the 1590s the Catholic Church, pushing back hard against the Reformation, wanted saints who looked fervent and unearthly, and El Greco gave them exactly that, stretched bodies, cool sharp colour, a flicker of nervous energy. He kept versions of these apostle sets in his own studio and reworked them for years. This one left Toledo centuries later and now hangs in a small collection in upstate New York.