Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus

The most audacious compositional decision in Baroque painting: Caravaggio reduces the central miracle of Paul's conversion to — a man lying on his back on the ground, arms raised; a massive horse above him; a baffled groom. No divine light. No Christ. Yet the painting radiates the miraculous. Pietro da Cortona said he could look at it for the rest of his life and still not have seen everything in it.