David and Goliath
Virgil Solis, 1565 · 1 Samuel 17:1
The passage
Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and were gathered together at Shochoh, which belongeth to Judah, and pitched between Shochoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim.
1 Samuel 17:1
About this woodcut
David is at the left, small, bare-legged, in a short tunic, with the sling already swinging over his head. Goliath is at the right in full sixteenth-century plate armour with a plumed helmet, a long spear and a shield taller than David. Between and behind them the two armies face each other, and the Philistine tents are pitched on the right.
The giant is still standing. Solis picks the moment before the stone lands rather than the beheading that every later artist chose, and the whole picture is held in the gap between the two figures. Goliath is armoured like a German knight of 1565, which is exactly the point: he is what a soldier of the reader own day would be terrified of.
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