San Giovanni Evangelista e san Francesco

Two saints stand together who lived some 12 centuries apart. On one side is John the Evangelist, young and beardless, holding the cup with a small dragon that recalls a legend of poisoned wine he drank and survived. On the other is Francis of Assisi, gaunt in his monk's habit, founder of the Franciscans. El Greco painted them in Toledo around 1600, and Francis was a figure Spain could not get enough of in those Counter-Reformation years. El Greco alone returned to him over and over. The bodies are stretched tall and narrow, the drapery broken into cool restless folds, the way he had trained his Spanish public to expect a saint to look. Their upward glances carry the eye clean past the top of the frame.