Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca 1525-1569), The Conversion of Saul, 1567, oil on panel, 108 x 156 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The painting pictures the expedition of Saul, ardent persecutor of Christians, on his way to Damascus at the very moment that he fell to the ground and heard a voice asking “Why are you persecuting me?”. Like in other paintings of Bruegel, reference to the then Spanish-ruled Southern Netherlands and the suppression of its population is never far away.

Bruegel shows a military force on foot and horseback ascending an alpine pass from a steep precipice giving view to the left on a vast valley and a seacoast. Surprisingly, Saul’s army is pictured in 16th century dress with concurrent armour and weapons. The army shown is thus a Spanish army, similar to the ten thousand strong army the Duke of Alba led in 1567 (the year this painting was finished), from the Italian coast and northern Italy along the so-called “Spanish Road” across the Alps, Savoy and Lorraine into Brussels.

In the procession of Spanish warriors, the viewer discovers in the centre of the painting the principal figure, Saul, though, a small figure in blue amidst onlookers and in disproportion to a few prominent Spanish horse-riding officers on the foreground to the right.

Again in this painting Bruegel uses a pretext for his real intention to substantially emphasize the impingement of the Spanish oppressor on his own time.