Category: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I have recently finished a panel painting that had been on my mind for some time,  close to ten years , 2015 in fact. Back then I had sketched out a drawing, watercolor on paper in which the Green Knight, fully into greenmanhood, in his woodland revery upon a horse , his steed draped in a chivalric cloak, embroidered with ornamental foretelling of  his adventures to be.

So compelling do I find the Green Knight in general that I have returned to the theme Wildmen, Wodewose and Greenmen time and time again, needled with thread and rag and upon canvas and panel. At some point last summer I decided a more finished painting was in order, but of a younger, prettier wild man. Being greatly inspired by the exquisite panel painting and illuminations of the northern renaissance, I hoped to capture that pictorial storytelling missing from the watercolor sketch .

First step for a finished panel painting is a finished schematic drawing :

A transfer to panel the next logical step.

As the under drawing is freehand , inevitable details were added- rarely is something removed in my compositions 🤡.

Details of a hare-rabbit-bunny, that eternal symbol of fecundity and rebirth is juxtaposed next to the memento mori of a forgotten human skull.

 

The prancing faun, leading this merry display is an imagined reference to the greenery of the Knight’s nursery . In the painting , my interest was of the adolescence of the Green Knight, while still a youth, in the forest before his mysterious, frequently terrifying , oft told adventures began. Like Achilles I imagined the Green Knight having  a sylvan tutor-akin to Achille’s watchful centaur guide Chiron – note, this is not at all part of the standard Arthurian narrative, simply a personal fancy. Who this fellow is (far right) I do not know, he went from a bald Druidic fellow in the initial working drawing  to a blue bearded sage. Whoever he is he watches over the Green Knight and as parent would be, hesitant, concerned and yet encouraging of the nest leaving. 

I was also interested in foretelling the Arthurian knight Sir Gawain’s  sinister, often numinous interactions with the future Green Knight ( a brief rundown here :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Knight ).

In this painting I have the greened Green Knight astride a nursery hobbyhorse , its wheels of forget-me-nots, noting a gentler fellow than the menacing wild man who bursts upon Arthur’s yuletide court. His hobbyhorse’s cape is ornamented with depictions of  Bertilak’s castle, Bertilak’s comely and seductive bride, the Green Chapel , Death (looming throughout Gawain’s adventures) and the Green Knight himself , head in hand, menacingly empowered into full green manhood .

There is also a devil’s head because I cannot resist horned beings.

In the distance Arthur’s stronghold looms.

since we are in the woods, how could I resist a wee owl?

I had made good progress on the painting but life things interupted, a studio move, a setting up of a home studio, the purchase of an out of state  vacation home (and the setting up of that as well). All very good problems to have but nonetheless the near completed painted languished on the easel longer than I had wished. 

My concern was that the momentum would vanish, but upon returning home I handily picked up the brushes, figured out the palette scheme once again  and fumbled back into the previous rhythm -the brambles in the foreground however giving me a bit of trouble.

Yet last Friday I was able with satisfaction to declare, faun like, that my Green Knight was ready to venture out.