Old man with a lantern

Description

"....it's it's in the eyes!!! there is something in those eyes!!"... I've heard this told to me so often by so many people who looked at this painting of mine at various exhibitions. Especially when it was late and very few visitors were around. Some even complained of visions and nightmares later. "An old man with a lantern" my oil painting is believed to be cursed by some. I painted it in a single sitting one night a few years back. It is unusual of me because as a painter who works with 'wet on dry' technique, I have never completed any painting in a single sitting. Except this one! It started as a innocent challenge from my wife, a great admirer of my artworks. "Can you make something so captivating that the viewer is not able to take their eyes off it?" she jokingly teased me a day before. I was so take up with the idea that I kept thinking about it for a whole day and night. But I couldn't think of anything. The next night when my wife and kid had gone to bed around midnight, I went to my little studio cum study room and sat in front of the blank canvas. I distinctly remember it was a wild night. It was raining very hard with an unusually strong wind. I, however in my room, in front of that blank canvas, was completely oblivious to all sorts of freaking sounds the wind and the rain were making. I don't know what possessed me over the next 4-5 hours, the this painting is in front of you. My wife freaked out when she saw the painting in the morning. So have so many others over next few months in various exhibitions. They say if you stare at the eyes closely when no one is around, they somehow captivate you and you find yourself unable to take them off in spite of the growing chill all over your body...