"Conquest" and the Bayeux Tapestry

People ask me all the time about this inspiration behind this painting, 3 x 4' oil on canvas, in the collection of Shanon and Doug Rawlinson. If you have any art history you have probably seen images from the Bayeux Tapestry, a long scroll of needlework depicting the Norman Conquest. It's a fabulous creation with one superb image after another, and bordered by bizarre, whimsical animals. I've reproduced several sections of the scroll in the course of my art historical mural painting business, and noted several scenes of the knights horses crossing the Channel in boats. That started me thinking about how horses were moved across water in the days before bridges...and I concluded that the sight of a horse in a boat or an a barge would have been a commonplace sight until recently in our long history together.

This is a floorcloth/wall hanging I painted years ago and have in my studio, reproducing a section of the tapestry showing William the Conqueror. The nuns who created the scroll were brave and brilliant!