The Story Behind The Painting.

There is a story that I have been interested in reproducing as a piece of Art for a while now, it tells about the invasion of Rome by the Sabines. The Romans had abducted the daughters of their neighbours in 'The Rape Of The Sabine Women'. 'Rape' in the sense of 'kidnap'. To avenge this abduction, the Sabines attacked Rome, although not immediately, since Hersilia, the daughter of Tatius (the leader of the Sabines) had been married to Romulus, the Roman leader, and had two children by him. We see Hersilia standing between her father and her husband as she tries to prevent the warriors on both sides not to take wives away from their husbands or mothers away from their children. The other Sabine Women join in her.

The Intervention Of The Sabine Woman

Throughout my time in jail I had been contemplating producing a painting as a tribute to my beautiful and loyal wife, Marguerite Charlotte. This story, I feel would be perfectly fitting. The theme is to be reconcilliation, a story of love prevailling over conflict, I hope to portray purity as well as bloodshed...she will be thrilled!


I have been producing many compositional sketches and paintings, in one preliminary version of this painting I chose to portray male figures in the nude after studying traditional paintings from the Roman era. The Romans often portrayed their gods and heros without clothes. However, I began to think...why am I painting these males in the nude, when surely the women in this story are the heros? Whilst the men are causing death and chaos, the women aim to prevent it, they bravely place themselves and their children between the warring men. I want to create a superior quality in these women that is more moral than physical, I want them to be small, delicate, glowing...

Editing the painting.

So, my original idea began to grow. I started to blend out the clothing on the female figures in a bid to portray them as the heroes rather than the male figures. I decided that all of the women should be painted in the nude as I felt that they were all heroes not just Hersillia. The colours I used were quite different from my previous pieces of work as I felt that my palette this piece needed to be tamed. I still used some dashes of blue, red and green as old habits die hard, but I was aiming for a more gentle effect, gentle like the sabine women themselves.

The male figures.

So it was decided, the males needed to be clothed...I used modern style Army camoflage rather than roman attire to collage into the original version of my painting giving the men a uniform, both armys were given the same style of uniform. I then began to remove the warriors traditonal weapons and provide them with huge guns from which the sabine woman could not prevent the men from killing each other. Yes, she could stand between swords and lances and form a barrier between them, but she would be no match againt the weapons I provided! What would the warriors do? Would they carry on fighting or listen to the women they loved?