St. Thomas Aquinas Confounding Averroës

Thomas Aquinas Confounding Averroës from 1447 by Giovanni di Paolo at the Saint Louis Art Museum depicts the Dominican saint's theological triumph over the Islamic philosopher. The subject celebrated Dominican intellectual achievement, important for a painter working in Siena where the Dominican order was deeply influential. Characteristic of the artist's mature approach, the work displays brilliant, jewel-like color, gold grounds, lyrical figure types of Gothic grace, perspectival experiments that create strange compressed spaces, intense narrative invention.

The theological debate is staged with narrative clarity, the contrasting figures of Christian saint and Islamic philosopher rendered with Giovanni di Paolo's distinctive angular style.