“And the media who know nothing about paintings?” Timothy prodded.
“They won’t learn anything by my extolling the uniqueness of each painting due to the artist’s use of light, the depth of the image, or the drama of the piece.”
“I agree,” I said. “A painting needs to be appreciated on its own, from the way it makes you feel and the emotion it pulls out of you.”
“Bella,” the man said, “You are exquisite.”
“Enough, Danny. Go do your job.” With an arm suddenly enfolding me, Timothy guided me over to the right side and into a chamber that I actually hadn’t seen yet.
“These are some new paintings I encountered at the last moment. I hope they meet your approval.”
I almost didn’t hear him. I was staring at the one that had captured me from the moment I entered the room. A jaguar stared into my eyes, entreating me, his whiskers so detailed, I could almost reach out. His painted face itself was a work of art. He stood at the side of a forest, a rain forest, I presumed, but he wasn’t hiding. He was brazen, fierce, and challenging anyone who entered the room.
I inhaled my breath and stepped forward, already lost in the enchantment of the piece. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t look away. The jaguar beckoned.
“Yes, I thought so,” Timothy murmured, which was such an odd thing to say that I actually turned and glanced at him, breaking my trance with the cat.
“He is wonderful. This is the picture that rules the room. He is so splendid all the other paintings must be jealous.”
As I said that, another couple walked in. The woman spotted a painting on the right, one with a huge oak tree that seemed to age as the viewer looked. It was a lovely piece, but it didn’t call to me. I went back to the jaguar, soaking up his aura, feeling his greatness, and his vast courage.
A hazy light filtered in from the left of the painting. I could see that it was approaching dawn. The sun was almost ready to rise above the trees. I could feel the moisture in the air due to the patches here and there of low clouds. But none of that bothered the cat. His eyes continued to stare into mine. The beauty of the rosettes on his body of tawny-yellow made me yearn to pet him. But his front leg displayed rippling muscles as if telling me that he could charge me if he wanted. I could almost hear him, that low growl of subtle challenge.
He was peeking through a dense group of ferns. Above his head grew a slightly smaller tree with a banana-shaped leaf. I guessed it might be a rubber plant.
And there in the canopy behind the jaguar, that dense green layer that enclosed the jungle like a roof, I spotted a blackish spider monkey, his tail wrapped around the branch of a large Brazilian nut tree. As I stared at the forest, I found a tapir, a pig-like animal that really shouldn’t be anywhere near the jaguar. Did he sense that the cat wasn’t hungry at the moment?