The scene
White stone walls climb the face of a great mountain, each tier with its own gate, to a tall slender tower with a shining tip and a small white tree in a court beneath it. Hundreds of small windows glow gold, a crescent moon hangs in a green and gold sky, snow lies on the peaks, and a river shines far off across the plain. On a wet cobbled road a few carts and riders carry lanterns toward the gate, while a red beacon fire burns on a distant hill.
The style
A Victorian moonlight painting: a green-gold night sky, deep shadows and warm lamplight in every window, the road shining wet in the moonlight, the way the painters of the 1880s painted cities after dark.
The inspiration
From The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, the city of Minas Tirith in Gondor, with the beacon lit to call for help. The look comes from John Atkinson Grimshaw's Reflections on the Thames, Westminster (1880), the Victorian painter of moonlight: still water, warm windows and a dusky green night sky.
How it's made
A print of a digital artwork in the style of a Victorian moonlit oil painting, not an original. Each carries my printed Chapter & Scene signature.
