Peter Paul Rubens - Daniel in the Lions' Den
Paul Gaugin - Tahitian Women on the Beach
William Holbrook Beard - Bear Dance
Jacob Jordeans - The Bean King
Thomas Gainsborough - Mr and Mrs Andrews
Henry Fuseli – The Nightmare
The work was likely inspired by the waking dreams experienced by Fuseli and his contemporaries, who found that these experiences related to folkloric beliefs like the Germanic tales about demons and witches that possessed people who slept alone.
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
Caravaggio – Conversion on the Way to Damascus – 1601
Santa Maria del Popolo