This small painting is dominated by the imposing figure of the saint depicted according to the canonical elements that define him as a mature man holding the book of preaching the Gospel, with a beard and dark hair parted in the middle and sloping to the sides like that of Christ. St. James is a wanderer and his face is sad and weary, with bare feet on the stony ground and with an eye toward a distant village that he has left behind. Dressed as a pilgrim, he stands on a hill against a pale blue sky with white muffled clouds. The resulting figure compressed foreshortened against the low horizon of the sky standing out for the prominent physical presence that leaves little room for an extraordinary landscape piece engraved by a raking light that hits a turreted Nordic village
