Saint Michael Slaying Satan

     

Saint Michael Slaying Satan, 2024
Oil and gold leaf on linen
92 x 61 cm | 36.2 x 24 in

‘And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.’ (Revelation 12:9)

The representation of clothes in motion, or suspended in the air, presented a significant challenge. To achieve this, I studied Caravaggio’s brilliant depictions of flying angels, especially The Inspiration of Saint Matthew (1602). Caravaggio worked a lot with models, but his floating draperies seem to have been produced from imagination, which is only possible if the artist understands how the drapery folds are subject to gravity and how the body distributes their weight.

I needed a clear opposition between the angel and the demon, between the luminous sky and the wasteland below. The painting follows a composition first drawn in graphite on paper. Vertical lines are defined by a combination of visual elements: the trajectory of the wooden spear, the rock formations behind, and the portrait orientation of the picture. This clear composition is divided horizontally between light and darkness, movement and stillness, life and death.