Head of Tiger 

Antonio Ligabue painted this arresting head of a tiger, sometime before his death in Italy in 1965. The directness of its gaze, the raw power of its open mouth and bared teeth, immediately engage us. But what can we make of this image? Ligabue was an outsider, institutionalized for much of his life, and his art was long dismissed by the mainstream art world. The tiger here becomes a symbol of untamed nature, perhaps reflecting Ligabue's own sense of being marginalized. His choice of subject matter can be linked to the cultural fascination with exotic animals, and even with the rising environmental consciousness of the mid-20th century. To truly understand this work, we need to delve into Ligabue's biography, the history of outsider art, and the shifting attitudes toward nature in postwar Italy. Only then can we appreciate the depth and complexity of this seemingly simple image.