A Very Gallant Gentleman

Given his current career trajectory, Liam Neeson films are to be approached with caution but last night I caught his 2012 film The Grey about a band of oil workers marooned in the frozen wastes of Alaska and menaced by marauding wolves. I enjoyed this surprisingly tough, unsentimental muscular adventure film, dare I say cut from the cloth as Deliverance. One shot featuring the men struggling against blizzard winds reminded me of John Charles Dollman's famous 1913 painting A Very Gallant Gentleman which depicts Antarctic explorer Lawrence Oates gangrenous and frostbitten leaving his tent to walk into a ferocious blizzard and certain death, an act of supreme self-sacrifice so that his three companions might continue their journey to safety without him further slowing down the party. Legend has it Oates' final words to his companions before he left were "I am just going outside and may be some time"...