Christ Appointing Saint Roch as Patron Saint of Plague Victims
He lived in the fourteenth century and is said to have effected many miraculous cures, by the sign of the cross, the touch of his hand and prayer.In the upper group, Saint Roch is in prison praying for relief for those suffering from the plague.Then light bursts into the prison, a divine messenger appears accompanied by Christ himself; with his left hand Christ gestures towards the afflicted while with his right, he points to the golden inscription "Eris in peste patronus" (Thou shalt be the patron in the plague).[1][4] In this picture, Rubens uses the "diagonals" technique often used by baroque painters, as a means to link the upper group of figures, who gesture and lean downwards, with the supplicants below, whose outstretched arms and gaze draw the eyes diagonally back upwards to the higher group.[5] The work is sometimes compared to Saint Roch Interceding with the Virgin for the Plague-Stricken, a 1780 painting by French artist Jacques-Louis David.