Lion of Atlas

In this lithograph, the lion bears down with ferocity on an unfortunate rabbit. As a leading proponent of Romantic sensibility in the early 19th century, Eugene Delacroix was attracted to the strength and violence of wild animals. He sought to stir primal passions in the viewer and to offer escape from civilized society. His images of big cats resulted from studies in the Menagerie and Natural History Museum in Paris, yet he depicted the animals in exotic imagined settings, such as the Atlas Mountains of Morocco seen here. Delacroix embraced the medium of lithographic printing, invented in 1796, because he could achieve a painterly and naturalistic effect. He drew with a greasy crayon on a smooth stone surface and scraped away areas to be highlighted before the image was inked and transferred to paper.