Jon Snow Approaches a Dragon on the Cliffs — Print & Oil Painting

Not one edge in this painting has been tidied up. The whole surface is built from broad flat loads of paint pushed on and left, so the cliff, the mist and the animal are all made from the same blunt marks and only their colour tells them apart. It has the look of a study made quickly in front of something, and it keeps that nervousness.

The man is seen from behind. He stands at the bottom centre on a narrow lip of rock, small, a dark cloak falling to the ankles, and his right arm is extended straight out at shoulder height with the hand open. No face, no expression, nothing to read except the arm. It puts the viewer directly behind his shoulder and makes the decision his rather than ours.

What he is reaching towards fills the upper two thirds. A dragon with both wings fully spread, the membrane a bruised slate blue shot through with rust red, the head brought down and forward until the pale muzzle is level with his hand. Behind it, higher up on the crag, a second small figure stands beside a single point of yellow flame.

The television series stages this meeting on Dragonstone; the books have not yet arrived at it. Either way the painting understands the important thing, which is that the man is not armed and the animal is not restrained. From our Game of Thrones collection, beside Daenerys riding Drogon through red skies, which shows the same species from the saddle.