Link Approaches a Vine-Covered Forest Temple — Print & Oil Painting

The building has no business being there, and the picture knows it. A small classical facade stands among the trees: triangular pediment, two square columns, four shallow steps, all of it cut from pale stone and now half swallowed by moss and hanging vine. The forest around it is wild and the architecture is not.

He is at the lower right, back to us, one hand against a trunk, stopped rather than walking. The shield across his shoulders is turned fully toward the viewer and is the most detailed object in the frame: blue field, gold triangle, a red bird spread across the upper half. Under the hood only the tip of an ear and a strand of blond show.

All the light in the painting comes out of the doorway. It falls forward down the steps and across the grass as a wedge of hot lime green, the only warm colour in a canvas otherwise built from teal, petrol blue and black. A dark banner hangs in the opening, so the source itself is never visible.

Above and around, the canopy is a tangle of thin black branches with moss trailing off them, and dozens of small white sparks hang in the air at every depth, including one brighter winged light beside his head. Part of our Zelda collection, alongside Link at the Deku Tree's entrance in bloom for the other doorway in these woods.