The Battle of Barnet Painting Diary

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THE BATTLE OF BARNET - PAINTING DIARY

Graham Turner follows the creation of a major new painting.

After several months of long hours working at the easel, Graham Turner unveiled his new, large-sized oil on canvas painting of the Battle of Barnet to much acclaim at the Barnet Medieval Festival in June 2019. One of the pivotal battles of the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Barnet was fought on a foggy Easter Sunday, 14th April 1471, between the armies of Edward IV and his one-time ally, the Earl of Warwick.

Here Graham introduces the subject of the painting and, using stage-by-stage photos, guides you through the process of bringing his vision to life and changing a blank white canvas into the finished painting.

A brief background to the Battle of Barnet

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, was one of the Yorkists' principal supporters from the very beginning of the conflict known today as the Wars of the Roses, when the English nobility split into conflicting factions over who wielded the power behind King Henry VI's throne. After the death of the Duke of York at the battle of Wakefield, Warwick put his might behind York's son Edward and his bid for revenge - and the throne itself - in early 1461, culminating in victory on the bloody battlefield at Towton.

However, by the late 1460s Warwick was feeling overlooked; in secret King Edward had married Elizabeth Woodville - the widow of a Lancastrian knight - at the time Warwick was busy negotiating a prestigious diplomatic marriage for him in France, and when Edward then started to show favour to his new in-laws over him, Warwick turned against his one-time protégé and allied himself with his former sworn enemy, Henry VI's queen, Margaret of Anjou, forcing Edward into exile and briefly restoring Henry to the throne.

Edward returned in 1471 and his campaign to reclaim the throne began with a precarious march from his landfall in Yorkshire, past Coventry, where Warwick refused the opportunity to meet him in battle, and on to London, before Warwick finally confronted him on Easter Sunday at Barnet, just north of the capital.

Warwick's artillery fired through the night before the battle, but misjudged the position of Edward's army and overshot. Dawn arrived clouded in thick fog, probably not helped by the gun smoke hanging in the atmosphere, and the two armies crashed into each other in a desperate clash of arms.

This is the moment I wanted to capture in this painting, the struggle at the height of the battle, men fighting for their lives and being cut down in the brutality of medieval warfare. Central to the composition is Edward, wearing the Royal arms on his tabard and a crown on his head, his banner and personal standard flying behind him. He is in the thick of the fighting, about to strike down one of Warwick's billmen, while others jostle for position to strike at their enemies, trying not to stumble over their fallen comrades. In my preliminary sketch I indicated a couple of figures on the right in the middle distance; as the painting evolves these will become Warwick himself and his brother John, Marquess Montagu, both of whom would lose their lives at Barnet, and in the central background, just visible through the fog, I will indicate the banners of the Earl of Oxford overrunning those of William, Lord Hastings, commander of Edward's left, an important part of the Battle of Barnet story.

Many other individuals and details are included in this complex piece of historical story-telling, and I will talk about these as the Painting Diary progresses. First though, it's time to get some paint onto the bright canvas!

Firstly, using a brush I draw the composition I developed in my preliminary sketch onto the canvas to make sure all the elements are in the right places. This isn't set in stone, and I will make constant adjustments as the painting progresses - it's not just a matter of drawing an outline and colouring it in!

The progress photos included here are just quick snaps taken on my easel, so please allow for any lack of quality, but I hope they help show the various stages the painting goes through.

I then very broadly cover the whole canvas with paint (below), which allows me to build up my tones in relation to one another without the distraction of all that very white canvas. It also obliterates a lot of my initial drawing out but enough remains visible to guide me - ultimately I don't want to be governed by outlines, but rather paint three-dimensional objects.

As I start to establish some of the main figures (below) you can see how it is easier to lift these out of the mid-tone I've covered the canvas in. I work fairly loosely for as long as I can to try to preserve a sense of atmosphere and movement, leaving the working up of specific details until much later in the creation of the painting.

As I put in more figures what initially appeared to be quite a strong overall background tone now starts to appear really quite pale in places, showing how tonal values are relative to one another. My figures usually start in my head, drawing the pose I think fits the action and composition, sometimes aided by some quick photos taken in the garden to prove that my ideas are physically possible and also to help visualise the foreshortening of limbs, twist of a head, positioning of hands, etc., all the little touches that hopefully make the people in my paintings look real. The armour and clothing I construct on the basic figures using the huge amount of reference material and information I've gathered over the years. With such a complicated painting it can get rather chaotic in my studio, with reference all over the place, and be very frustrating when I can't lay my hands on a particular picture of a certain tomb effigy I'm basing one of the armours on!

Establishing the banners in the painting makes a huge difference to the overall appearance (below). I've added colour to the important ones in the foreground, while the others will be painted in various degrees of fogginess to convey the atmosphere that is so important. At the moment some of these are a bit strong, but that can be adjusted as I progress.

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