El Greco
Christ the Savior

1602-1610
Oil on canvas
Toledo Cathedral

The figure makes the common blessing gesture with three fingers signifying the Trinity and two for Christ's two natures, human and divine. The scarlet robe may be a reference to the cloak of the same color that dominates the artist's earlier Disrobing of Christ. And, following up on the two-natures theme, the blue is taken from the traditional color of Mary's mantle. The same combination appears in El Greco's Christ Carrying the Cross.

The square halo is a characteristic of El Greco's images of Christ. In other art it is almost always confined to representation of saintly persons who were alive when the image was created.

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Photographed at the cathedral by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.