The Fall of the Damned

This is a reproduction of “The Fall of the Damned” of 1620 by Peter Paul Rubens. This monumental religious painting features a jumble of bodies of the damned. They are being hurled into the Abyss by the Archangel Michael within sight of heavenly bliss shown in the light of the upper part of the painting. Rubens became the preeminent Flemish Baroque artist. He was a diplomat as well as a painter, draftsman, and gentleman. His extensive travels in the service of princes and kings to the courts of Italy and Spain exposed him to the best of Renaissance painting, sculpture, and literature and acquainted him with two of the most illustrious painters of his time, Caravaggio and Velázquez. He died twenty years after the creation of this painting in 1640 in Antwerp. This masterpiece is an oil on canvas and measures 112.6 by 88.19 inches. It is in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.