#chaos

It started out as a Flood picture, from what I've read — he'd already done the same subject on glass and then got stuck for months trying it at this size. The story goes he got moving again by having someone say the word for 'deluge' over and over while he worked.

This one used to go by another name too — 'The Fall of the Rebel Angels.' What's happening is the archangel Michael and his angels hurling a crowd of the damned down into the abyss. Apparently it was painted as an altarpiece, which feels like a lot to put behind a church service.

According to Wikipedia he spent months on more than thirty studies for this, then put the final thing down in about three or four days. The experts apparently read the Flood and Judgment Day into it — though nobody seems to claim you're actually supposed to be able to see them.