The Erection of the Cross
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Matthew 27:35
The passage
And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
Matthew 27:35
About this plate
The cross is going up. It comes out of the bottom left corner at a steep angle with Christ already fixed to it, and half a dozen men are underneath it — pushing, hauling on ropes, one with his shoulder jammed against the shaft. At the top right a man on a ladder steadies the head of it. Below, in the near corner, a woman has sunk down and been caught by the people around her.
The plate has two subjects and they are on opposite diagonals: the machinery going up, and the grief going down.
The verse is Matthew's, and it moves in a single sentence from the execution to the property: And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots. Four words for the crucifixion. The rest of the verse, and the whole of the quotation that follows it, is about who got the clothes.
Doré puts the soldiers with the ropes in the brightest part of the block. They are not villains in this picture. They are men lifting something heavy, correctly, together.
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