When Rodrigue returned from Los Angeles, he immediately found the inspiration
he was seeking. Returning to the bayous and moss-covered oak trees of Louisiana
suddenly made him aware of what he had missed while in the big city. He realized
that no artist was painting the true spirit of Louisiana – the dark
and mysterious swamps, the bayous, the witchcraft and the haunting cemeteries.
He had now found his subject matter and his inspiration. Rodrigue combined
his interest in Pop Art, his Abstract studies and his Louisiana heritage to
form his own style. With this revelation, he became the first artist to dedicate
his painting to the Cajun culture.
His landscape paintings fall into two distinct categories – oak tree
landscapes and landscapes with people. For Rodrigue, the live oak was not
only a symbol of Louisiana, but it was a strong design element which he used
to it’s fullest potential. In every Rodrigue landscape there are three
main elements – the darkness of the oak tree, the shadows in the foreground
and the eerie and mysterious light in the sky. He never tired of the oak tree,
and continued to experiment with variations on this one theme and formula.
The inclusion of people into his landscapes did not happen for nearly five
years. When he did include them, they were not contemporary Cajuns, but the
Cajuns of the turn of the century. They are generalized figures, representing
the culture, the legends and history of the Cajun people. Ghostly white, the
figures often seem to float in the paintings, touching neither ground nor
sky. Like the glorious oak tree, the figures are seen as structural forms,
creating balance in the contrasts of light and dark.