Regular Shipping is 
Currency converter
Join
Newsletter
"Jumbees"A painting created to illustrate "Jumbee and
Other Uncanny Tales", a collection of short fantasy and
horror stories written by American author Henry S.
Whitehead. The other version was
painted on a canvas textured board, something the Artist
was not entirely content with, being far happier, as was
often the case then, with this version painted on paper
mounted on wood panel principally in oil paint but with
selected areas enhanced with acrylic.Henry St. Clair
Whitehead (March 5, 1882 - November 23, 1932) was born
in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on March 5, 1882, graduating
from Harvard University in 1904 (in the same class as
Franklin D. Roosevelt) and later attended Berkeley
Divinity School and was ordained a deacon in the
Episcopal Church in 1912 then serving as acting
archdeacon of the Virgin Islands from 1921 to 1929. It seems that, while
living on the island of St. Croix, he collected material
that he ten employed in creating his tales of the
supernatural. Wikipedia states ; "A
Jumbie, Jumbee or mendo is a type of mythological spirit
or demon in the folklore of some Caribbean countries."
It seems there are numerous kinds of Jumbees, reflecting
the Caribbean’s complex history and ethnic makeup,
drawing on African, Amerindian, East Indian, Dutch,
English, and even Chinese mythology."Different cultures
have different concepts of Jumbees, but the general idea
is that people who have been evil are destined to become
instruments of evil (Jumbee) in death. Unlike the ghost
folklore which represents a wispy fog-like creature, the
Jumbee casts a dark shadowy figure.In the picture, the Artist
has chosen to concentrate on elements that suggest a
Caribbean environment, palm trees and swampland, but
tilting the overall presentation to also reference
the kind of elements western viewers of film and TV
would immediately connect with, horror genre works,
being Bats circling in the sky and a tinge of
Werewolf in one of the characters and, to nudge the
appeal wider still, he has introduced a fantastical
castle in the background.As ever, PAJ
"pushes the boundaries" and never settles for
"images of the obvious", always looking for a twist
on a basic theme.Deborah
Susan Jones,
Writer.
