St. Peter Denying Christ
Gustave Doré, 1866 · John 18:26
The passage
One of the servants of the high priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see thee in the garden with him?
John 18:26
About this plate
A courtyard at night. A fire burns on the ground in the middle of the plate, and everything is lit from it, upward, so the faces are all wrong — shadows in the eye sockets, light under the chins. Peter stands left of the fire with a hand half raised. A servant girl is turned toward him, saying something. Behind and above, a staircase full of figures, and soldiers with staves.
The lighting does the work. Doré could have lit this from a torch or the moon; by putting the only source on the ground he makes every face in the courtyard look like it is accusing somebody.
The verse is the third challenge and it is the worst of the three, because it is not a guess. One of the servants of the high priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see thee in the garden with him? The man is a relative of the victim. He was there.
So the question in this picture is not who are you. It is I know where I have seen you. Peter's hand is up, and the plate stops before he speaks.
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