El Expolio

El Greco painted this for the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral between 1577 and 1579, one of his first big Spanish commissions after arriving from Italy, and it landed him in a lawsuit. The cathedral chapter refused to pay what he asked. They also objected on doctrine, that the three Marys were shown where the Gospels never place them, and that the heads of the tormentors rise above the head of Christ himself. El Greco was ordered to remove the offending figures. He never did, and in the end took a fraction of his price. What he would not touch was the centre of it, Christ in a robe of deep, glowing red, calm in a churning mob of soldiers and pointing hands, his eyes turned up while a man kneels at his feet drilling the cross. That red tunic still pulls your eye straight to him the moment you walk in.