Gideon’s men raise their torches on the ridge; smoke pours upward.
Bible in art · Judges
Gideon Routs the Midianites
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
The engraver Pannemaker, whose name runs along the bottom right, cut this night scene for the Tours Bible of 1866; Doré’s signature sits at the left. Almost the whole block prints black, and the light comes from fine white lines cut into it.
On a ridge above the tents Gideon’s men raise blazing torches, smoke rolling into the night sky. Below, the Midianite camp breaks up in panic: horses rear, riders crash into one another, men fall under the hooves. The torchlight catches only the edges of the struggling crowd.
From the text
- They “blew their horns and broke the jars that were in their hands” (Judges 7:19)
- “Holding the torches in their left hands and the horns in their right hands” (Judges 7:20)
- The whole army fled, crying out, and the men turned their swords on one another (Judges 7:21–22)
The artist’s own
- The three hundred stand together on one hill — the text has each man take his place around the camp
- Midianites on horseback, in a whirl of manes and cloaks
- Tents drawn as rows of pointed cones under the dark sky
Details
The torches
A fleeing rider
A horseman turns back in terror as his horse rears.
Collision
Riders and horses tumble into each other in the dark.
The camp
Rows of pointed tents stretch across the valley.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 1, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1873 (acc. 75.267 A), tabl. 55 · 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.