The Apparition of the Virgin to Saint James the Great

Around 1629 Nicolas Poussin was a French painter making his name in Rome, and this altarpiece was bound for the far north, the town of Valenciennes, then under Spanish rule in the Low Countries. Its subject is a Spanish legend. While the apostle James was preaching in Spain, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to him at Zaragoza, standing on a pillar of jasper, and the church built on that spot made her Our Lady of the Pillar, a patron of Spain. Poussin gives the vision real weight and wind. Mary and her angels ride a gust that lifts her veil, while a shaft of light picks out the astonished saint below. The pillar she stood on is still venerated in Zaragoza, in the vast basilica named for it.