San Domenico in preghiera

Toledo in 1606 was a city of convents and religious houses living by rules the Council of Trent had laid down a generation earlier, and some of those rules were about pictures. A saint was to be shown praying, alone, so that whoever stood in front of the canvas could do the same. El Greco built much of his workshop on that demand, and he painted Saint Dominic, the Castilian who founded the Dominican order, kneeling before a crucifix more than once. Versions of the figure hang in Toledo Cathedral and in Boston, and the differences between them are slight. He pulls the body far past anything a real one could manage, the head about a thirteenth of the full height instead of the usual seventh, and sets the white habit against a sky of heavy cloud.