The Whale over the Lighthouse

About this work

A whale floats among moonlit clouds, sparkling with golden light. Below it stand a lighthouse and a little harbour town, and their lights are mirrored in the calm night sea. Nothing in the scene is in a hurry. The whale seems to keep watch, a quiet guardian over the water.

Surrealism began in Paris in the 1920s, when painters and poets set out to picture the logic of dreams. Their method is simple to describe: take familiar things and place them where they do not belong, painted with care, so that the impossible looks calm and real. A whale in the sky is that kind of image. The lighthouse adds a much older meaning. For centuries it has stood for guidance and safe return, a fixed light for those at sea. Here both are touched with gold.

Peaceful and a little magical, it suits a bedroom, a nursery, a bathroom or a coastal living room. Walls in navy, slate blue, soft white or sea grey bring out the night tones and the gold. It belongs to the set Golden Hour Dreams; hang it with The Door at Sunset and Catching the Moon to move from dusk to night across one wall. The file prints sharply to roughly 76 cm on the long edge at 300 dpi.