A Conversão de São Paulo

Saul of Tarsus is on the road to Damascus to hunt down Christians when a light knocks him flat. Murillo splits the canvas between two worlds. Below, the man sprawls on the ground beside his startled white horse, one hand flung up against the blaze. Above, Christ leans down out of the brightness with the question the Book of Acts records: why do you persecute me? From this moment Saul becomes Paul, the faith's great missionary. Murillo painted it in his last years in Seville, around 1678, working in the soft, warm manner that made him the most sought-after painter in the city. The horse, wide-eyed and rearing back, feels the light as plainly as its rider.