The Crucifixion
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Luke 23:34
The passage
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
Luke 23:34
About this plate
Three crosses on a dark ridge, Christ on the middle one, the two others turned slightly away. Below them the ground is thick with figures — mounted soldiers, spears, a crowd breaking up and moving off. In the upper left the cloud has split and a hard bar of light comes through it.
This is the only plate in the sequence drawn from a distance. Everything before it — the scourging, the crowning, the nailing, the raising — is close enough to touch. Here Doré steps back until the three crosses are small against the sky and the crowd has become weather.
The verse is the first word from the cross, and Luke sets it against the pettiest thing in the scene: Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
Those two sentences sit side by side with nothing between them. The prayer, and then the dice. Doré keeps both in frame and gives neither of them a spotlight, which is the only honest way to draw a verse that refuses to rank them.
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