Gol D. Roger vs Whitebeard — Print & Oil Painting

The format does something to this duel that a taller frame could not. Stretched into wide cinema proportions, the composition leaves a broad emptiness of grass and haze along the bottom and one long unbroken sweep of storm cloud across the top, then pushes the fighters out to the edges and hands the entire middle of the picture to the shockwave.

The weapons are the real comparison. On the right, Murakumogiri: a naginata with a shaft as long as a man and a heavy inward-curving blade, its spine ridged and its lacquer chipped, one of the twelve supreme grade blades and the reason a single swing of it counts as an event. On the left, a plain cutlass held one-handed, thin enough to almost vanish against the sky.

Roger is braced low, coat streaming, the gold discs along its border catching what light there is. Whitebeard has left the ground entirely, one leg tucked, the enormous white coat and its red cape spread behind him. Neither face is more than a few decisive lines, and both men are shouting.

Between them the air holds a small dark star with straight fractures radiating from it, and pale beams sweep down and to the left across the grass. The palette is storm grey, wine red, bone and gold, and every warm colour in the frame belongs to one coat or the other. From our One Piece collection, where the same clash taken at the instant the blades meet hangs as its near twin.