Knights in a Fiery Duel — Print & Oil Painting

Stand close and this is a slab of palette-knife work: broad flat strokes of cadmium orange, scarlet and lemon dragged over one another with the ridges left standing, and a cream-white core burning through the middle where the strokes thin out. The paint has been pushed around rather than drawn with.

Step back and two knights appear. Both are silhouettes cut out of the flame in blue-black, both are seen from the waist up, and both hold their swords high so the blades cross near the top of the canvas in a shallow X. That crossing is the only place in the whole picture where one hard edge meets another.

Only the helmets are described in any detail. On the left, a rounded great helm with a horizontal sight slit and a riveted brow. On the right, a helm with the visor lifted and a rough face beneath it. Below the collarbones both men dissolve into dark impasto, and the armour is suggested by nothing more than a few pale scrapes across the shoulders.

Structurally it is a triangle with the fire at its centre pushing outward, and the two dark masses are set close to the left and right edges so the heat has room to work between them. It belongs to our Knight & Crusade collection, and pairs naturally with the darker duel, which handles the same subject with the fire pulled back and a shield brought forward.