Jesus Healing the Lunatic
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Matthew 17:14
The passage
And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,
Matthew 17:14
About this plate
A crowd under palms, and at the right, low on the ground, a boy in the middle of a fit — back arched, head thrown, held down by a man kneeling over him. A woman leans in. Christ stands to the left of centre with the disciples behind him, and the two halves of the picture, the calm and the convulsion, are joined by a single line of sight.
Doré does not soften the seizure. The body is drawn accurately and it is unpleasant to look at, which is unusual for a healing plate; most illustrators arrange the sick tidily.
The verse he was given is a fragment, and a strange one to choose. There came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying — and it stops. The sentence breaks off before the father says anything. What he says is in the next verse: Lord, have mercy on my son.
The plate holds the same half second. Nobody has been healed. A man is kneeling with his mouth open and a request half out of it, and the boy on the ground is still convulsing.
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