medium: oil paint on canvas
size: 100 X 100 cm
price: NFS, commission piece
I showed “Blues and Royals” last Autumn and immediately sold it. They say you never can tell how one thing will lead to another but the memory of having seen it prompted someone to commission me to paint another similar picture.
B & R has the cavalry to the left and a line of spectators with umbrellas to the right. I left out the rain and the spectators and added in suggestions of Autumn foliage. When I painted B &R I differentiated between what was the primary subject and “secondary figures”. I am now trying to treat the whole canvas with the same pictorial values, even if the treatment of one part can use a different approach to its build up. The foliage was rendered by an accumulation of irregularly assembled short brush strokes without the rhythms used to suggest the fall of the riders’ capes and the muscles on the horses.
There are also differences in the positioning of the horses. The most visible rider is almost on the centre line and to ensure an absence of balance I added in two further riders on the right hand side, not in profile but full frontal.
I am ambivalent about what this represents. On the one hand it is directly derived from the clip clopping pageantry of our Ruritanian state, the colourful Britain that tourists line the streets to see. Look again.
The helmets allowed me to express something about the brutality of the soldiery in the depiction of their faces. Take away the fancy dress and they could easily be members of a lager fuelled mob baying in support of a football team or to assault an immigrant. There is no compassion there. Similarly armed riders cut down the protesters at Peterloo, - “just following orders…" Who guards the guards?
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