The Great Last Judgement, painted by Rubens between 1614 and 1617. Copyright: PHAS.

Rubens was not really concerned with notions of beauty, body shape and body size as we understand them today. He was far more concerned with questions of faith and eternity.

Rubens was a devout Catholic and was seen as the leading cultural figure of a period of spiritual renewal in the Catholic faith that came to be known as the Counter-Reformation.

Typically bold, vibrant and dramatic, these religious works sought to use the human form to provide a powerful religious experience in the eyes of the viewer.

In the Massacre of the Innocents, Rubens captures the Biblical story of King Herod’s slaughter of first Bethlehem first-born sons in gory, passionate detail.

Among the muscular bodies of the male assailants is the falling figure of a mother trying to protect her infant son.

Bare-breasted and vulnerable at the centre of the slaughter, her pale, fleshy body fights off the powerful male figure that clutches at her child.

In The Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth and John the Baptist, the bare breast of the Virgin is there to suggest the nourishment of the infant Christ and to link the piece back to earlier depictions of the same scene by other artists.

In paintings such as The Great Last Judgement, Rubens shows off his technical mastery of painting human form and flesh to depict the blessed ascending to heaven while the damned are dragged away to hell in flamboyantly dramatic fashion.