The Crossing of the Red Sea

Poussin painted The Crossing of the Red Sea around 1632–34, depicting the biblical episode in which Moses parts the waters to allow the Israelites to cross while the pursuing Egyptian army is drowned. The large composition — one of his most ambitious figure paintings — organizes a vast crowd of people in states of movement, terror, and gratitude across a wide horizontal format. Poussin's study of ancient battle sarcophagi and procession reliefs shaped the way he structured these complex multi-figure movements across the picture plane, creating a kind of freeze-frame of human action at a moment of maximum drama and divine intervention. The work was painted in Paris on Poussin's first reluctant return to France at the invitation of Richelieu and Louis XIII.

The dramatic contrast between the orderly Israelite procession and the chaotic drowning Egyptians creates a powerful visual narrative, with the turbulent waters rendered in dynamic, sweeping brushstrokes.