15 Spanish Saints and the Painters Who Gave Them Their Faces
Spain has given the Church more canonised saints than almost any other nation, and it did something rarer still: it…
Teresa of Avila: The Mystic Who Was Also a Builder
Everyone knows the face Bernini gave her: head fallen back, mouth open, a marble nun undone by an angel with…
Francis Xavier: The Missionary Whose Body Refused to Decay
In February 1553 a burial party on a Chinese island dug up a crate they had packed with quicklime ten…
Ignatius of Loyola: The Cannonball That Made a Saint
On 20 May 1521 a cannonball came through the wall of the citadel at Pamplona, passed between Inigo de Loyola’s…
10 Doubting Thomas Paintings, From Duccio to Carl Bloch
Doubting Thomas paintings capture one of the most human moments in the Gospels. When the risen Christ first appeared to…
10 David and Goliath Paintings, From Caravaggio to Doré
David and Goliath paintings turn one of the oldest underdog stories in the world into some of the most powerful…
Rubens’ Descent from the Cross: Grief in Motion
The Descent from the Cross is one of the greatest works of the Flemish Baroque, painted by Peter Paul Rubens…
Rubens’ Elevation of the Cross: Strain and Glory
The Elevation of the Cross, also called The Raising of the Cross, is one of the most powerful works of…
The Most Powerful Religious Paintings by Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens paintings give Catholic Baroque its most muscular voice. Step into the great Antwerp altarpieces of the supreme Flemish master.
12 Baroque Christian Paintings by the Masters of Light and Shadow
Baroque Christian paintings transformed the language of sacred art more radically than any movement before or since. Between roughly 1600…