The traveller cuts a luminous furrow as a planet awakens below in unease. The last vestiges of night are just visible but most of the stars have capitulated to the curving shard.
The sky dominates with the settlements and vegetation painted diffusely as if viewed by the newly unslumbered. The muted gradient moves from blue to yellow: the eerie fruit of the interbreeding of celestial torches.
The lower third contains high contrast between shaded bank and gleaming reflective lagoon capturing and corralling the sky trail along its path.
A comet is a transient herald on a cosmological cycle - bound to repeat its message but at intervals of decades. This triangle of white, like a reverse spotlight invades the naturalistic vista - like a conquering army raising its standard.
The strong perspectival features explicit above but more subtle below show the cutting of a new path and within its historic context this painting tells of different dawns to come.
Hermes, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as he was told.
Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals
with which he could fly like the wind over land and sea.
He took the wand with which he seals men’s eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he pleases, and flew holding it in his hand ...
Homer
The Odyssey
Part of a solo exhibition at the National Gallery London until 17 Aug 2025.
