deepreligio, the saint is about to strike his chest in penance ( o) this interesin psyogical tensity, human emotis, 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 t represent the moment just before the philistine clips samson's hair and robs him of his strength as delilah andhe 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, effectively leasing some tonalnergy thecene. thiexhibitionwe discored that changesere often made to van dy'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 paintehimself. the pentimenti cane seen in van dyck's "martyrdom of s sebasan by looking clo, it is possible to see a vague dication of the rider'st as the artist originally placed it. diovering this change lp to establish authenticit