La Transfiguration

La Transfiguration

Biblical Possession

This image is a biblical possession similar to Raphael's composition. The top half of the painting portrays the story of the transfiguration and the bottom half shows the healing of a boy with a demon. Deep rich colors of red, blue, and yellow and the dramatic lighting of the clouds make the scene dramatic. The characters are similarly represented in dramatic postures and given dramatic expressions. The boy demoniac has lifted off the ground in violent convulsions. Rubens' boy is arguably more dramatic as his limbs appear in a more unnatural position: his skin is a deathly gray, he has hair is flying wildly around his face, he is foaming at the mouth, he has clenched fists pulling at his already torn clothes and he is lifting off the ground. Rubens' image is more horrifying because this boy has less control over his own body. The loss of control is by demonic possession and communicates to the viewer the loss of the boy's humanity to the demon that possesses him. The father of the boy is behind, him holding his son, and yet, in both paintings the fathers are looking away, not at the boy.

Peter Paul Rubens

Musée des beaux-arts, Nancy

ARTstor

1604-1605, 17th century

ARTstor

http://www.artstor.org/copyright

http://mban.nancy.fr/fr/collections/peintures.html

Oil on Canvas

French

Still Image

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