A winged figure comes down through a shaft of light.
Bible in art · Luke
The Agony in the Garden
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
Pannemaker and Ligny cut this night scene for the Bible of 1866. The fine lines of the wood block turn the garden into a deep mass of trunks and leaves.
Jesus kneels on the ground beside a rock, one arm raised. From the upper left an angel glides down through a shaft of pale light, its wings spread among the branches. The light falls on the kneeling figure and a patch of ground; everything else — huge twisted roots, dark trees, broad leaves — sinks into the night.
From the text
- “He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, where He knelt down and prayed” (Luke 22:41)
- “an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him” (Luke 22:43)
The artist’s own
- A thick wood of ancient, twisted trees — the Gospels name only a garden on the Mount of Olives
- The disciples asleep nearby are left out, so the two figures are alone
- The angel as a winged figure in a long robe, made of light
Details
The angel
Kneeling
Jesus kneels by a rock and lifts one hand.
Twisted roots
An old tree clutches the slope with huge roots.
Broad leaves
Large-leaved plants grow in the dark foreground.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 2, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1874 (acc. 75.267 A) · Wood engraving after Gustave Doré’s design · National Library of Poland (Polona): the record of the volume gives the licence «Domena Publiczna» (Public Domain), «copyrightProtected»: false; the scan was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the library itself («Polona Upload», GLAM-Wiki partnership: “This file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of a GLAM-Wiki partnership between the National Library of Poland and Wikimedia Polska”), linking its Polona record.