Saint Peter and Saint Paul (El Greco, Barcelona) Saint Peter and Saint Paul (El Greco, Barcelona) Saint Peter and Saint Paul is a painting by the Cretan-Spanish artist El Greco. The work was completed between 1590 and 1600. It is currently on display at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, who purchased the work in 1932. El Greco completed "Saint Peter and Saint Paul" between 1590 and 1600, while living in Toledo, Spain. Returning to a theme he had previously painted in a work now in the Hermitage, the painting depicts saints Peter and Paul, two of the Apostles of Jesus. According to the guide of the Museu
Posthumous fame of El Greco as a "mad painter" and, therefore, his "maddest" paintings were not admired but considered to be historical documents proving his "madness". During the operation of the Spanish Museum, El Greco became the ideal romantic hero, the gifted, the misunderstood, the marginal, the one who lost his reason because of the scorn of his contemporaries. The critics of "Courrier Français" and "La Presse" would retain the image of El Greco as a "mad painter". His "maddest" paintings were not admired but considered to be historical documents proving his "madness". In 1867, Paul Lefort, an expert on Spanish painting, dedicated an eight-page