Lion Hunt
Eugène Delacroix
1860–1861
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 76.5 × 98.5 cm (30 × 38 1/2 in.); Framed: 105.5 × 125.8 cm (41 1/2 × 49 1/2 in.)
- Genre
- painting
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
oil paintings (visual works)paintingfrancenineteenth century19th centurypaintChicago World's FairscanvasMountainlionsCentury of ProgressSkyoil on canvasfrenchanimalsdeathmenoil paint (paint)painting (image making)mountainshorsesswordspainting techniquesromanticlandscapeshieldsmanviolenceworld's fairscloudsoil paintingeuropean paintinghunterhorse
About
In 1832 Eugène Delacroix joined a diplomatic envoy to French-colonized Algeria. The sights and experiences from this six-month journey fueled the rest of his career, lending his canvases an illusion of accuracy that his less-traveled competitors lacked. The artist expressed in his journals from abroad his admiration for Arab culture, even characterizing it as superior to that of post-revolutionary France. Nevertheless, in paintings like this he catered to violent European fantasies about the Arab world. Having never witnessed a lion hunt, Delacroix skillfully synthesized studies of landscapes, Islamic costume, and zoo animals to bring this narrative to life with theatrical intensity.
