Focus on this artwork and explain the Description.
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, as noted by Brown, is painted in the late-Renaissance style and shows El Greco's Italian training to fine advantage. The figure is graceful and naturalistic. The eyes are cast heavenward, either in communion with god or in acceptance of his own impending death. El Greco's Sebastian seems resigned to, or perhaps even enjoying his martyrdom. While perhaps slightly elongated, the solitary nude figure is solidly fleshy and certainly shows none of the extreme exaggeration in contrasting highlights or pigmentation for which the artist would later be known. Behind the figure, a somewhat stormy landscape is indicated with loose, gestural brushstrokes. Similar to most portrayals, the saint is shown bound to a tree and pierced in the side with an arrow. And yet, the Palencia Sebastian, unlike El Greco's other surviving portrayal of the saint, currently in the Museo del Prado, deviates in one significant way from the traditional iconography. Rather than painting a standing figure, as most artists portraying the saint did and as he would in the Prado Sebastian, the Palencia Sebastian is crouched in a kneeling posture, bound to the tree by a rope that passes around a raised arm, the bulk of his weight supported by the large rock on which El Greco signed the painting.
El Greco Museo del Prado Saint Sebastian