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Young Italian artists in Australia
The painting depicts an episode from the Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah (Judges 16). Samson, having fallen in love with Delilah, tells her the secret of his great strength: his uncut hair. Rubens portrays the moment, when having fallen asleep on Delilah's lap, a servant proceeds to cut Samson's hair. After, a weakened Samson is arrested by Philistine soldiers. The soldiers can be seen in the right-hand background of the painting.
The niche behind Delilah contains a statue of the Venus, the Goddess of love and her son, Cupid. This can be taken to represent the cause of Samson's fate.
The old woman standing behind her, providing further light for the scene, does not appear in the biblical narrative of Samson and Delilah. She is believed to be a procuress, and the adjacent profiles of her and Delilah may symbolise the old woman's past, and Delilah's future.
The Philistine cutting Samson's hair has his hands crossed as he cuts, this is a sign of deceit.
Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640), was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.
In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England.
In 1600, Rubens travelled to Italy. He stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The coloring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an immediate effect on Rubens's painting, and his later, mature style was profoundly influenced by Titian.[5] With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601. There, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters. The Hellenistic sculpture Laocoön and his Sons was especially influential on him, as was the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci.[6] He was also influenced by the recent, highly naturalistic paintings byCaravaggio.