Caravaggio – Conversion on the Way to Damascus

This represents the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. He was a Roman, big on persecuting the Christians. In this painting he is temporarily blinded by the light of Christ and hearing Jesus words, which admonish him for his persecution. Saul became St Paul one of the early and most important apostles. His writings were the foundation for the New Testament.
Caravaggio was paid 300 scudi for this painting. Which was a pretty good chunk of change in its day. At the time a painters assistant might make about 30 scudi a year. The Scudo may have been worth about 75¢, but it converts to more than 20 times that in today’s currency. One hundred years before, Leonardo was paid about 100 scudi for a painting and Michelangelo was paid 200-450 per statue.
To see the original: https://bit.ly/2EqfuYX

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Caravaggio – Conversion on the Way to Damascus – 1601
Santa Maria del Popolo

Johannes Vermeer – The Art of Painting

Although Vermeer began as an art salesman, he considered himself more of a painter. He only worked on commission and did not produce more than two or three paintings a year. This allowed him to provide for his wife and their eleven children. For this reason he only produced 45 works. Only 35 still exist.

Considered the most iconic of Vermeer’s existing masterpieces. The Art of the Painting has had a rough ride in the last century. In 1935 Andrew Mellon sought to purchase the painting from its Austrian owners for $1 million, but failed. In 1940 Adolf Hitler acquired the painting for considerably less. It was to be hung in his Fuhermuseum, which was never built. Instead it ended up in a bunker in an Austrian salt mine where it waited out the war. It was one of many masterpieces of art that were rescued by the US Army Monument Men division. Link to original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Painting

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Johannes Vermeer - The Art of Painting – 1666
Kunsthistrisches Museum, Vienna