Liz Danforth's City of Plenty

On April 8th in 2024, Erik sent me a request for what became the painting at the top of this post. That painting is part of the Gothic expansion to Sorcery: Contested Realm which will be released next week, December 5th. This official trailer might wet your whistle while you wait.

Erik's brief original request:

I'd recently finished the Courts paintings in all their excruciating details, and he was trying to give me a break.

But with no more description than "a colourful and wealthy city," I didn't have a lot to work with. Moreover, architecture and perspective are not my strong suits — it would be a good challenge, but daunting. I asked for more detail. His answer:

I let this stew around in my brain, not really satisfied with my initial concepts. Then one morning, just as I opened my eyes…

I'd been thinking and thinking on it, and my overnight brain coughed up something that could be really excellent. I put the dog out to pee, fixed my coffee, and did a hasty sketch to capture the elements and reassure myself that I wasn't imagining something that wouldn't come together. It does not match what you describe — it does feature people luxuriating in their excess, but they're on a patio overlooking the city, making the whole more of a landscape.

Erik gave me his blessing, and I ran with it.

A Place of Repletion

The overall tone of the Gothic expansion is emphatically grimdark, aching with despair, where the few devotees of the Light strive against the innumerable minions of the Dark. A sense of futility and fatalism streams from everything I've heard about the set.

So why is there also a city where everything is sweetness, light, wealth, and leisure?

On one hand, perhaps all heroes need a sanctuary like Rivendell. Or perhaps someone, somewhere, made a terrible bargain to acquire unlimited personal pleasure, through willful ignorance and deliberate blindness, contorting any rationalizations to justify inhabiting their private cocoon of extreme opulence, indifferent to any cost.

I found myself thinking of Ursula K. LeGuin's "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas." Erik confirmed that I was on the right track.

Getting Started

I began from the rough — very rough — idea I sketched out that first morning. With hindsight, you can see I caught some elements I would eventually include (and some I did not). But even I could hardly have guessed what it would be in the end.

Gilded Eras and Other Considerations

Some reference points I had in mind from the start — the "Chiricahuas" note reminded me about the mountain retreat I'd gone on a few months before, with dawn and sunset photos lighting the peaks above the narrow canyon. A different trip gave me the sky.

Most photos I found later, or I set up objects I owned to serve as models. Like as not, it wasn't the photo itself I used, so much as setting it up and getting a feel for what might be on such a tray.

Of course, a lot was just plain made up out of whole cloth.

Buildings

Some architectural details deserve a closer look. Aside from considerations about the present day, two historical eras suggested themselves for my visuals: America's Gilded Age (late 1800s) and, to a lesser extent, the middle Victorian period overall.

The real medieval Gothic era was much, much earlier — roughly 1200 to 1600 CE at the latest — but I wanted a "look and feel" that modern viewers would relate to. Ornate, statuesque, realistic, polished, poised, confident. And over the top, but still somehow "in good taste" — not Versailles.

The advent of early photography gave me time-relevant references, with all their copyrights long expired. Most notably, the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago was an eruption of everything both wonderful and hideous about the (Western) world at the time. The buildings were enormous and lit with Tesla's electric lights, yet the exhibits included "showcase displays" of living people in "exotic traditional dress and settings," often romanticized and/or deemed savages corralled for breathless viewing by millions of attendees. My awareness of this dichotomy colored my take on the whole painting, even as I fit the buildings into place.

Then there were the main characters: a seated woman, and the man behind her. A lover? A bodyguard? Both? Surely not husband.

Again, I picked photos from the era or, in the case of the man's figure, the famous Mucha painting of Sarah Bernhardt whose pose was perfect for my purpose, once I flipped it (and damn the gendering).

In the end, I submitted this sketch and got Erik's approval. Bits were drawn separately, the composition cobbled together in Photoshop, and lots would change before it was all over. But this was enough for me to put it onto the board to start painting.

It's Not Paint By Number

Composition is one challenge. Painting is an entirely different set of challenges, with new problems to solve every day. You'll notice I don't have a color rough: I know approximately what I want, so I go try to make that happen, or adjust as necessary. (This is something of a bug, not a feature. I work slowly, and would rather repaint a section than paint three prelims.)

Physical things also change as I tackle one problem after another. A tall narrow jar suddenly swaps for a small round one; or a blank space needs filling to keep the eye travelling around the picture the way I intend.

And that's where my brain starts making up stories about the world, the people, the situation I am creating. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts while painting, because the problem-solving effort of putting paint onto board is more than mechanical but it is not about story. Even with books and 'casts, the story-hungry part of my brain is screamingly bored.

And that's how things got crazy, almost all at once.

The Easter Eggs

A blank spot on the balustrade near the seated woman needed something. "Gee," I thought, "I bet Seji would like it if I painted his cat into this piece." I met this sleepy piece of fluff while visiting my friend Seji in Kraków a few years ago, when I was a guest at Pyrkon.

The space to paint the cat into was small, barely 1.5" across (3.5cm). And when I was done, I couldn't be sure if the cat appeared to be sleeping…

… and I really started to hate those two.

From that point on, I leaned into depictions of the decadence and corruption around them. The lemon is beginning to get moldy. An opium poppy gets pride of place in its own vase. A roach scuttles in the shadows… and where you see one, there are certainly more nearby.

There is a frog in the flowers. There is a mouse on the pastries. And like cockroaches, seeing one implies others.

Then there are the other animals. In a cheeky callback to Vincent Pompetti's Abundance card from the Alpha set — suggested by Chase on the Sorcery team himself, as I recall — these depraved "billionaires" of their time have the paradisical bird caged up. Because of course they would.

Then there's the dog sitting beside the man's legs. I love dogs, and the one depicted is actually a lovely pittie named Cleo that I fostered for most of a year. That said, I was one of the few households where she could have been fostered or adopted — no other dogs, no cats, no kittens, no children. Just me, familiar with strong-minded dogs and experienced enough to handle her… problems.

The Rest Is History

While working on this painting, I was listening to a couple of British historians (Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland) who host "The Rest is History" podcast. I had heard their multipart series on Eva Peron, and then became engrossed in the even longer series on Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, and the French Revolution, as they went deeply into the weeds of French social conditions and culture leading up to the Revolution.

Hmmm: rampant corruption, decadence and depravity, fake news, scandal, and wealth inequality feature strongly in all these. Familiar, much??

This brings me to the final figure in the painting, almost lost in the background.

There was always a servant in the background, even in that initial scribbly sketch. Her details, though…

Most notably, she wears a cockade at her hip, and a Phrygian cap on her head. The mistress wears beaded slippers; the servant wears boots. And while the couple look like they taste only the finest wines, iced berries, flaky pastries, and sweetmeats (to judge by what appears on the overflowing trays), she is carrying in mugs of ale.

Wrapping It Up

Yes, yes, I'm well-aware I'm playing fast and loose with history, even history warped in service of a fantasy card game. The blue+white+red tricolor of the French flag was not adopted until the Revolution was well underway (although the tricolor cockade was "devised… two days before the storming of the Bastille.").

I am also acutely aware I am skating around much that is not being said (despite the length of this post), because reasons. You are freely invited to connect the dots however it suits you. That's a universal hobby these days, it seems.

And I am putting this post live on Black Friday specifically because, to me, the upcoming Gothic expansion generally, and this painting specifically, speak to elements of the everyday, now.

I appreciate the support I receive from all of you. Your patronage helps enable me to create paintings and write these essays about a city of plenty, and about Omelas, and about those who walk away, as well as those who stay.

Thank you, always.

— Liz

Thanks again to Liz Danforth for letting The Painted Realm showcase the story of City of Plenty. We greatly appreciate it. All content © Liz Danforth, reprinted with permission.

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