The scene
A vaulted stone cellar with heavy arches and pillars, black still water, and a small wooden rowing boat drifting with its oars trailing and a single candle lit on the seat. Far across the water, candelabras burn on a stone landing and throw soft light over the steps. There is no one in the picture, only the waiting.
The style
A Baroque candlelight painting: deep shadow all around, a single small flame, and warm light glowing on stone and water, the stillness of a room lit by one candle.
The inspiration
Inspired by The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1910), the novel in which Christine is rowed across an underground lake. The look comes from Georges de La Tour's The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame (c. 1640): a single flame, deep shadow and warm light on stone.
How it's made
A print of a digital artwork in the style of a seventeenth-century candlelit painting, not an original. Each carries my printed Chapter & Scene signature.
