Ocelot with skull

The domestic animals constant in the artist's iconography in the first phase of his activity are first flanked and then almost replaced by wild animals and especially the felines, in whose naturalistic rendering Ligabue soon becomes a master. This is the case with this leopard caught in the moment of preparing to leap towards the beholder. The frontal view of the head with its jaws wide open, the softness of the fur spots and the evident agility of the animal, even if the traditional reference to a possible prey or an enemy to be faced is missing, underline the dramatic character of the scene, which accentuates precisely because it seems to constitute a threat to the spectator himself, towards whom the aggressiveness of the feline seems to be directed. The scene is concentrated with a maximum of tension, since, as often, it is caught in the suspension that precedes the action by a moment. To make the image more disturbing is the presence of the human skeleton: a macabre symbol that until the early 1950s would accompany many of Ligabue's works, accentuating their disturbing character.