San Francesco e fra Leone meditano sulla morte

El Greco painted this in Toledo around 1600, in a Spain gripped by the Counter-Reformation, when the Church urged the faithful to keep death constantly in mind. That is exactly what the picture shows. Saint Francis stands in the rough brown habit of his order, holding a skull and studying it, while his companion Brother Leo sits quietly at his feet with his head bowed. The subject was popular enough that El Greco's workshop turned out many versions, and he commissioned a print of the composition in 1606 to spread it further. The light seems to come from nowhere in particular, catching the folds of the robe and the curve of the skull, and leaving the rest to a heavy grey gloom.