the saint is about to strike his chest in penance ( o) this interesin psyogical intensity, human emotis, and cral momen wou mark v dyck'wo ughout h career. van dyck again looked to a work by rubens for inspiration. but once again, he interpreted the story in his own manner. van dyck chose to represent the moment just before the philistine clips samson's hair and robsim of his strength as delilah and the oer conspirators watch anxiously. the composition may have seemed too compressed to a later owner: a strip was added along the upper edge to enlarge the pictorial space, of thecene. in this exhibition, disverd that changes were often made to van dyck's works. another ofhe artt's early religious paintings, "moses and the brazen serpent," was also altered, as we can see by comparing the size and format of the painting to a contemporary copy. compositional changes were also made by the painter himself. these pentimenti cane seen in van dyck's "martyrdom of st. sebasan by looking closely, it is possible to see a vague indication of the rider's ft as the artist origally placed it. diovering t