Saint Michael Casting Out Satan

Saint Michael casting Satan into the abyss was a subject of enormous Counter-Reformation significance — the archangel's triumph over evil paralleled the Church's self-proclaimed victory over heresy. Reni's version follows his celebrated altarpiece of the same subject painted for the Capuchin church in Rome around 1636, one of the most famous religious paintings of the seventeenth century. The archangel's serene beauty contrasting with the demon's hideous distortion embodied the moral clarity that Counter-Reformation art sought to achieve.

Dramatic vertical composition contrasts the archangel's upward-floating grace with Satan's downward plunge, using the full height of the picture surface. Michael's idealized beauty and luminous flesh tones are set against the dark, writhing forms of the defeated demons.