photo #5881556

⠀ Peter Paul Rubens ⠀ "The Beating of the Innocents." Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish painter who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. He was mainly concerned with religious works, like many other artists of the Baroque era.⠀⠀⠀ This canvas was no exception; it is based on a tragic story from the Bible: The Beating of the Babies (Gospel of Matthew, 2:16). At the moment of Christ's birth, Herod the Great, having learned of the birth of the Child, who was destined to become "King of the Jews", and fearing that his own power would thus be usurped, ordered the killing of all the babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity. The scene is a garden in Herod's palace. Warriors with naked swords tear the babies from the arms of their mothers, who weep bitterly and resist the violence. The ground is strewn with dead bodies. 1609-10