The Transfiguration
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Matthew 17:2
The passage
And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
Matthew 17:2
About this plate
The plate is split hard across the middle. The top half is cloud and light, with Christ suspended in it, arms slightly open, and two figures standing on the vapour on either side of him. The bottom half is dark rock, and on it three men have collapsed — one flat on his face, one twisted away, one with an arm across his eyes.
Doré has drawn the two halves in different techniques. Above, the lines are open and the paper does most of the work. Below, the block is cut so densely that the disciples are barely separable from the ground they are lying on.
The verse gives him the licence. Matthew says his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light — not bright, not shining, but white as the light itself, which is not a colour so much as a refusal to describe.
So Doré declines to describe it too. The figure at the top of this plate is the least detailed thing in it. He is drawn with fewer marks than any disciple, any rock, any fold of cloud, and he is the only thing you can look at.
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