Traitor, Now Is Thy Death Day Come!
Traitor, Now Is Thy Death Day Come is an original artwork depicting the moment before the 'final embrace' between King Arthur and his bastard son Mordred. Although in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) Arthur runs Mordred through with a spear, and in the Vulgate Mort Artu (1210-1235) Arthur and Mordred both charge at each other on horseback brandishing lances. I chose to depict the scene with Arthur carrying the royal long sword, Excalibur, and Mordred a spear.
Although in the later French chivalric romance tradition this is told as being the final act of the Battle of Salisbury, the battle actually has a historical basis. The earliest dateable reference to the battle is found in the 10th-century Welsh work Annales Cambriae. An entry for the year 537 mentions the 'strife of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut (Mordred) fell, and there was great mortality in Britain and Ireland."
I spent a long time considering each combatants pose - Arthur's open and confrontational stance as he shouts the challenge "Traitor! Now is thy death day come" and Mordred defiant and oppressive. Emphasis was put on both stances by the low angle, and by placing Arthur in the slight foreground this shows Mordred as a towering and imposing opponent.
The setting sun motif is homage to how Arthur and Mordred are framed in both N.C. Wyeth's illustration for Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur (1922) and also John Boorman's excellent film Excalibur (1981) which is based on Malory's work. The use of a setting sun in all cases is a clear allegory to the ending of Arthur's life and the fall of Camelot.
The piece was drawn entirely, from concept to final, with a stylus using commercial brush sets including pencil, watercolour and oil.
This piece is A3 (11.7" x 16.5" / 297mm x 420mm) in size with the mount and frame additional to these dimensions making the final piece larger overall by approximately 6" on each axis (approx. as the framing for each instance is bespoke and therefore unique).
