He sits against the tree and raises his hand as he speaks.
Bible in art · Matthew
Jesus Teaching the People
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
E. Goebel signed this plate at the lower right. Doré fills the sheet with listeners and closes the top with the crown of one great tree, so the scene feels sheltered and close, more like a village gathering than a spectacle.
Jesus, with a thin halo, sits on a rise against the trunk and raises one hand as he speaks. Men in turbans and mantles stand around him; women sit on the ground in front. Some kneel close by, and one man hides his face in his hand.
From the text
- Jesus went “throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues” (Matthew 4:23)
- People brought Him the sick and the suffering, and He healed them (Matthew 4:24)
- “The large crowds that followed Him” came from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan (Matthew 4:25)
The artist’s own
- Teaching in the open under a tree, not in a synagogue
- A halo, as painters traditionally drew it
- Turbans and striped mantles of the Near East as Doré’s century pictured it
Details
Jesus
The tree
Its wide crown closes the top of the picture.
A listener
A man kneels with his face hidden in his hand.
In front
A woman sits on the ground, turned toward him.
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.