Saint Matthew

El Greco (1541-1614)

• CE00009
• c. 1608-1614
• Oil on canvas

Saint Matthew, as an evangelists, holds an open book and a quill. The light strikes his blue tunic and rouge cloak, making certain parts almost white with the light, as is usual woth paintings related to the Venetian school or of the Florentine Mannerism.

The technical studies and analysis of the work tells us this painting, as well as the paintings of Saint Andrews, Saint Jude, Saint Phillip, and Saint Simon, are in an initial execution phase.

Throughout the 16th century we find in Toledo interesting pictorical representations of the 12 apostles. These creations started with the predella of the main altarpiece in the church of Saint Andrew, a work signed by Juan de Borgoña and Antonio de Cremontes, in which the apotles are depicted half-length, in an attitude of dialogue and with a golden brackground. In El Greco's last years the artist renewed the meaning of these series and turned them into a novel production that was no longer destined to occupy a place in the altarpieces. He designed 13 individual paintings with the images of Christ the Saviour and the 12 apostles, cut out on neutral backgrounds, endowed with monumental form and psychological expresiveness. The apostles are covered with tunic and cloak and are accompanied by identifying attributes of each character. In addition to these attributes, El Greco envisaged, for each apostle, chromatic combinations for their clothes and their own gestures that would become codes of identification of the characters.

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