Apostle Saint Peter
El Greco·1610
Historical Context
El Greco's Apostle Saint Peter of around 1610 depicts the first pope and the rock on which Christ declared he would build his church — the keys of heaven his traditional attribute — in the late apostle series that constitutes one of his last major bodies of work. Peter's combination of authority and human weakness — the denier who became the foundation of the Church — made him a psychologically complex subject, and El Greco's treatment suggests both the hierarchical dignity of the papal tradition and the human fallibility that Peter's story dramatized so powerfully.
Technical Analysis
El Greco renders Peter with his late, expressionistic technique, using dramatic elongation and the apostle's characteristic keys as both attribute and compositional element within a spiritually charged image.
