Night of the Black Panthers

Size (h w d): 36 x 48 x 1.5 in

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Type: Painting

Here kitty, kitty…a frightening painting unless you are Cat People.
If you are TCM fan you’ll recognize the 1942 movie Cat People as a weird, other worldly Horror Film. In the 80’s remake the movie Cat People with Nastassja Kinski takes on a more sensuous feel with her trying so desperately to remain human and not transform into a black panther and consume her lover. Although this is not the plot for the painting you may find that it stirs up your own uneasiness and mysteriousness that sets the stage for you to explore the work and experience your own interpretation.

The painting on close examination is very revealing, besides the many obvious green eyes and the intense scratching, you will discover the night ward path that moves diagonally through the work. In the upper left you will discover the panther’s lair or cave. The painting has a multi-dimensional mystical feel when viewed in person. The claw marks reveal many textures and subtle colors. Some playful, others more menacing.

If you are a devotee of poetry then you may be familiar with Ranier Maria Rilke’s Der Panther (The Panther) poem. Inspiration for the poem came from a captured panther that he viewed behind bars as it was exhibited at the Menagerie of the Jardin de Plantes in Paris. Here is an excerpt from the poem, ” Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly…. And images enters in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.”

For a better viewing of this painting I invite you to go to my website to see it enlarged at Rod Jones Artist.com…Not quite like viewing in person, but it still projects an emotional view of the painting. The feel is of the essence of the panther’s life, one of gravity, respect and somewhat frightening over-tones.