Triss Merigold Unleashing Flames in the Forest — Print & Oil Painting

Look at the legs first, because this is a picture about a physical act rather than a pose. The feet are wide apart, the front knee is driving forward over the toes, the back leg is extended and locked at the hip, and the torso has rotated ahead of the hips. Weight is travelling through the figure from back foot to front hand.

The two hands are at two different stages of the same operation. The right is up at shoulder height, fingers curled round a small dense ball of fire that has not gone anywhere yet; the left is thrown out flat with the fingers spread, and the flame is already off it and expanding to the right. Charge and release, drawn simultaneously in one body.

The field is going up. A wall of yellow flame occupies the whole right side, the grass is alight in the foreground and the middle distance, pale birch trunks disappear into smoke behind, and sparks travel across the canvas in loose diagonal drifts. This is the most saturated painting in the group by a considerable margin and it does not hold anything back.

Against that, the costume is sober and practical: a brown leather corset over a white shirt with the sleeves pushed up, a quilted teal jacket with a pale fur collar, an interlaced knot pendant at the sternum, grey-brown trousers and tall boots buckled at the knee and ankle. Short red hair pushed back off the forehead.

The expression is the thing that lingers. Not effort and not fury, but a small, slightly unpleasant satisfaction, mouth closed, eyes narrowed at the fire she has just set. Part of our The Witcher collection, and the single flame held on an open palm in a cold wood is the same power at its quietest.