Decided to change the title as clouds seemed more appropriate...
Hakim Bey came to power at the age of sixteen as the other members vied for the throne after his father had died due to suspected poisoning. Although young he was wily in the ways of the Court just like his father and was able to position himself to take over by a combination of ruthless murders of his Mother's side of the family and sending most of his Father's side into exile after maiming under torture so that they no longer posed a threat to his position. Hakim Bey considered this to be a great act of kindness on his behalf which set the tone for his reign from then on. Over the years however paranoia set in as he doubted his own wisdom of letting those family members live and decided to build a new palace high up on the side of a mountain trusting that it was impregnable from any future threat by armies or indeed assassins sent by what was left of his resentful family. To an outsider the palace looked fantastical and enchanted but this belied the dark secret of Hakim Bey's rise to power as he slowly descended into a life of debauchery and paranoia eventually being ended by a knife to the throat by a courtier loyal to a distant cousin who Hakim Bey had forgot to deal with. This ruler proved to be worse than Hakim Bey but that's another story...
Well, that's what I heard...
For some reason I struggled a bit with this painting, maybe because I used hardly any reference so maybe I have learnt a lesson in basing Fantasy a bit more on reality! I was after a Maxfield Parrish look but the painting as is often the case went on it's own way and only has some of the feel that I originally intended. At one point I was thinking of giving up on it but I decided to ditch the original foreground and paint in more clouds which I think saved the picture...
This will probably be on sale on my upcoming slot on Every Day Original later this month unless I come up with another one before then.
Oil on linen 16" x 12".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.
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