Jambalaya: Cajun Music in Trees

Painted fifty years ago, Rodrigue’s Jambalaya (a.k.a. Cajun Music in Trees) reflects not the popular rice dish, but rather a jumbled mixture of instruments and sounds, creating the music for a fais do do, or Cajun dance.  The painting is a classic example of Rodrigue’s early Cajun Series canvases with figures.  The tree, cut offContinue reading “Jambalaya: Cajun Music in Trees”

Miss July Fourth at Fifty

“Paintings take on a life of their own, long after the artist is gone.” George Rodrigue, from my journal. As a young Cajun man of twenty-seven living in Lafayette, Louisiana, George Rodrigue (1944-2013) chose to express his culture’s pride in their adopted American homeland in a most unusual way. His painting of Independence Day illustratesContinue reading “Miss July Fourth at Fifty”