Working in Antwerp at the start of the seventeenth century, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) had, during his years in Italy, absorbed Titian's colour, Caravaggio's light and shadow, and the power of ancient sculpture, then fused them in his own explosive style. The result is the most energetic language of Northern European Baroque: twisting bodies, diagonal compositions, straining muscles, and warm, living flesh.

"Samson and Delilah" is an early summit of this style. The scene is the moment of betrayal, as Samson — whose strength lies in his hair — sleeps in Delilah's lap while a servant cuts it. Rubens compresses the drama into a single taut moment: the muscular back gleams in candlelight, regret mixes with complicity on Delilah's face, and soldiers wait at the door to seize Samson. The light comes from Caravaggio; but the exuberance of body and movement is wholly Rubens's own.

Rubens was not only a painter but an institution. His Antwerp workshop was a production centre employing dozens of assistants and pupils (Anthony van Dyck among them); church altarpieces, palace ceilings, hunting scenes, and mythological series issued from it. He was also a diplomat and courtier who spoke several languages and carried out embassies between rulers. That standing is a symbol of the artist's rise from craftsman to respected intellectual.

Rubens's influence lasted for centuries: the "colourist" and dynamic tradition running from Watteau to Delacroix and on to Renoir took him as its source. Art history's classic debate — whether line (Poussin) or colour (Rubens) is supreme — is named after him. The Venetian path of colour that Titian opened was carried north on Rubens's brush and fed a whole lineage of modern painting.