Samson Captured by the Philistines 1619

Guercino depicts a scene of betrayal and capture with his oil on canvas, "Samson Captured by the Philistines." The focused light draws our eye to the foreground where Samson’s hair is being cut, the very source of his strength now violated. Consider Delilah, the betrayer, complicit in Samson's downfall. The act of cutting hair is deeply symbolic, echoed in classical mythology with figures like Medusa, whose hair was transformed into snakes, representing a loss of power. There's an enduring motif here of hair as a symbol of virility and potency, a concept that goes back to ancient Greece. The clustered figures and intense expressions trigger a deep, subconscious understanding of betrayal. This emotional charge transcends time, resonating in works across different epochs. The non-linear progression of the symbols—hair, betrayal, capture—and the power they hold over the human psyche, reemerge again and again, transformed and yet eternally familiar.