David and Goliath
Gustave Doré, 1866 · 1 Samuel 17:51
The passage
Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.
1 Samuel 17:51
About this plate
Goliath lies face-down across the foreground, armoured, enormous, his shield fallen beside him and his sword and spear on the ground. Standing on him, in a white tunic, is David — and David's raised right hand is gripping a head by the hair and holding it up, with the beard hanging and blood falling from the neck.
The head is at the very top of the plate. Doré has placed it where the victor's own head should be, and put David's out of frame. For a moment your eye reads the giant's face as belonging to the boy's body. That is not an accident; it is the most disturbing thing in the picture, and it is done with composition alone.
Along the horizon, on the left, the Philistine army is turning to run. On the right the Israelites are standing with their arms up.
The verse is unusually procedural for scripture — ran, and stood, and took, and drew, and slew, and cut off — six verbs, in order, no comment. Doré illustrates the end of the list and lets the armies supply the reaction, which is the only thing the sentence is interested in.
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