The Conversion of Saint Paul

The Conversion of Saint Paul (c. 1614) depicts the dramatic moment from Acts 9 when Saul of Tarsus, riding to Damascus to persecute Christians, is blinded by a divine light and falls from his horse — the transformative experience that turned the Church's greatest persecutor into its greatest missionary. The subject's violent action and supernatural dimension gave Rubens an opportunity to display two of his greatest compositional strengths: the equestrian subject (the rearing, falling horse) and the depiction of supernatural events through the physical vocabulary of light and falling bodies. Caravaggio had treated the same subject in two celebrated versions for the Cerasi Chapel in Rome — works that Rubens almost certainly knew from his Italian years — and the comparison illuminates the two painters' different approaches to religious drama: Caravaggio's intimate, ground-level observation contrasting with Rubens's more expansive, theatrically staged energy. The painting's location in the collection formerly associated with the Electors Palatine reflects the German Protestant courts' paradoxical enthusiasm for Catholic Counter-Reformation imagery of outstanding quality.

The composition creates dramatic chaos as horses rear and figures fall in response to the blinding light. Rubens' dynamic brushwork and powerful modeling of both human and equine anatomy demonstrate his supreme command of dramatic movement.

This depiction of Paul's conversion has been conserved over its history. The canvas has been relined. The dramatic contrast between the divine light and the surrounding darkness has been preserved, though some of the darker areas have become more opaque with age.