Conversion of Saul - Paolo Veronese

Painting Detail

Conversion of Saul
Artist: Paolo Veronese
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 191x329 cm
Date: c. 1570
Genre: Christianity, Religious
Source: Collection of of Count Widman, Venice, acquired before 1783

Man's spiritual transfiguration became a popular subject in late 16th-century Italian art, one of the most common treatments being the story of Saul. Saul was an unbending enemy of Christian teachings who, on the road to Damascus where he was to lead the persecution of the Christians, was suddenly struck to the ground and blinded by a bright ray of light. He heard the voice of God addressing him from the sky, and then he was converted to Christianity, taking the name of Paul and becoming an apostle.

In Veronese's painting, Saul's figure, lying on the ground where he fell from his horse, is perceived as a sort of epicentre of an explosion: all around people are flying from him, horses rearing, trees bending. The frame cannot limit the stormy movement and a number of figures seem even to be partly outside it. This sense that the painting is in fact a still, a frozen element in a moving panorama, was found in a number of Veronese's works and was the forerunner of the approach which was to become widespread in the Baroque period.