Noah Cursing Canaan
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 9:24
The passage
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
Genesis 9:24
About this plate
Noah is right of centre, on his feet, robed, with his right arm thrown straight up and the hand open. At his feet a figure kneels face down with both hands raised. Tents behind them, a tree overhead, the plain running out flat to the horizon.
The other half of the plate has already turned away. On the left a group of women and children is walking out of the picture, one woman with her face buried in another's shoulder, a child pulled along by the wrist, a small boy right at the edge.
The verse gives you one man and one moment. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. That is the whole of it. No camp, no crowd, nobody leaving.
Doré draws the leaving anyway. The family is already coming apart before the curse has finished being spoken over it.
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