saint is about to strike his chest in penance ( oir singing ) this intesin psyogical intensity, human emotis, and cral moments wou mark dyck's wo ughout his career. van dyck again looked to a work by rubens for inspiration. but once again, he interpreted the story in his own manner. van dyck chose t represent the moment just before the philistine clips samson's hair and robs him of his strength as delilah and the oer conspirators watch anxiously. the composition may have seemed too compressed to a later owner: a strip was added along the upper edge to enlarge the pictorial space, effectively releasing some themoonal energy the scene. in this exhibition, we discovered that changes were often made to van dyck's works. another ofhe artt's early religious paintings, "moses and the brazen serpent," was also altered, as we can see by comparing the size and format of the painting to a contemporary copy. compositional changes were also made by the paintehimself. these pentimenti can be seen in van dyck's "martyrdom of st. sebasan." by looking close, it is possible to see a vague indication of the ri
