Hendrick ter Brugghen
The Four Evangelists
1621
ter Brugghen depicts the four Evangelists focused on their writings in dark austere rooms, each clad in a different colour and with the symbolic animal associated with them. In clockwise order:
John (green) - Represented with an eagle, figurative for the sky, owing to his writings on the ascension and Divine nature of Christ
Luke (blue) - Represented with an ox or bull, figurative of sacrifice and strength, owing to his writings on the Passion and the Crucifixion
Matthew (yellow) - Represented with an angel, figurative of salvation in a human form, owing to his writings on Christ’s genealogy from Abraham and his Incarnation as a human on Earth
Mark (red) - Represented with a lion, figurative of courage and monarchy, owing to his writing on the subject of Christ as king as well as his resurrection due to the common conception at the time that lions sleep with open eyes, just as Christ did in his tomb.