The painting titled The Departure of Lot and His

The painting titled The Departure of Lot and His Family from Sodom is ascribed to Peter Paul Rubens by its current owner, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. But most facts about this 85.5" x 96" oil on canvas work have been disputed. Questions of dating and the degree of Rubens' participation in this particular product of his workshop are made even more difficult by the existence of two other, nearly identical, versions. Regardless of the answers to such questions, however, the striking painting is a good example of the way Baroque painters combined their exuberant style and appreciation of physical splendor with a moral message.

The Ringling painting is dated c. 1615-16 by Suida, who also holds that it was "principally painted by the master's own hand." But D'Hulst and Vandenven, who date it around 1613-15, say that it was probably painted "by an assistant in the first place, then retouched by Rubens, especially the flesh parts." The two other versions are at Tokyo in the National Museum of Western Art and at Miami Beach, Florida in the Bass Museum. D'Hulst and Vandenven consider the former to be the work of Rubens' associate Jacob Jordaens and the latter, which they classify as "After Rubens," to be the work of studio assistants only. The Miami Beach version is signed and dated (1625), but Rubens, the most popular painter of his time, had his name placed on many of the works that came directly from his studio without his interventio

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h the first angel seems to lead the family. Rubens' version of this subject allows, therefore, for the typological approach in which the destruction of the cities symbolizes the Last Judgment, but he also presents a moral lesson about rejecting the things of this world and obeying God, by not looking back, as one goes forward toward salvation. It may, perhaps, be important that Lot succeeds by his own efforts. This painting, and the specific thematic focus of it, may reflect the Protestant-Catholic controversy over the question of free will and predestination. Though the Protestant reformer John Calvin did not intend the doctrine of predestination to "lead men and women into passivity and utter despair," later Calvinist reformers often preached that people were simply "passive objects of God's will" and rejected Calvin's original idea that people were "still responsible for their own acts." The supposed Protestant belief that not everyone could be saved, with the majority condemned to hell from the moment they were born, was a useful one for the Catholic Church since it could be promoted as an example of the superior attractions of Catholicism. In Rubens' painting Lot receives the aid of the angels and a warning from God-

Category: Arts - T