Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Exodus 32:19
The passage
And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
Exodus 32:19
About this plate
Seen from below, so that Moses towers. He stands on the edge of a stone platform with both arms straight up, the two tablets held over his head at the moment before he throws them. Lightning splits the cloud behind him. Underneath, people scatter and crouch, one woman with her arm over her head, an old man on his knees.
The low viewpoint is doing the work. Dore puts you on the ground with the people who are about to be rained on by stone, not up on the mountain with the man holding it. You are looking up at forty days of writing being destroyed and you cannot get out of the way.
The tablets are drawn as rounded slabs with the commandments in Hebrew characters, small enough that you would miss them if you were not looking. Everything else in the plate is enormous. The words themselves are the smallest thing in the picture.
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