Inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lamp-post
From £19.99
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Narnia art prints
C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) begins with the most famous step in children's books: through the coats at the back of a wardrobe and out into the snow. My Narnia print is that first step. It comes from the book, not any film, and is made with AI image tools and art-directed by me in the style of a Japanese snow woodblock.
Prints from Narnia
The story behind the scene
Lucy, the youngest of four children, hides in a wardrobe in an old house in the country. She pushes past the fur coats and feels something cold and powdery underfoot, and then she is standing in a wood at night with snow falling, walking towards a light. It is a lamp-post, burning on its own among the trees. A few moments later a faun hurries by with an umbrella and an armful of parcels, and is so startled to see her that he drops them all. Readers later learn, in The Magician's Nephew, how a lamp-post came to grow in Narnia at all. I wanted the picture to feel the way that wood does when you first read it, hushed, cold and full of wonder, with the lamp as the only warm light in it.
The lamp-post and Mr Tumnus
The lamp-post is where Lucy meets Mr Tumnus, the faun, on her very first visit to Narnia. He is so startled to see a human girl that he drops his parcels, then invites her home to tea by the fire in his cave. Only later does Lucy learn he had been meant to hand her over to the White Witch, who keeps Narnia in a winter that never reaches Christmas. My print is the moment just before they meet: the snowy wood, and the one warm light.
Gifts for Narnia fans
For a child's bedroom, a reading nook, or the grown-up who still knocks on the back of every wardrobe. It is a natural Christmas present. Unframed A4 prints start at £19.99, with free UK and US delivery.
Questions
- Why is there a lamp-post in Narnia?
- Lewis explains it in The Magician's Nephew: a piece of a London lamp-post is dropped in the new world of Narnia and grows into the lamp-post Lucy finds.
- Which chapter is the lamp-post in?
- Chapter 1 of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, "Lucy Looks into a Wardrobe".
- Is the print from a film?
- No. It is an inspired-by print based on the book, and nothing in it is taken from any film.
- Who is Mr Tumnus?
- A faun, half man and half goat, and the first Narnian Lucy meets, by the lamp-post in the snowy wood.
- Why is it always winter in Narnia?
- The White Witch has cast a spell that makes it always winter and never Christmas.