Two Seated Lions

by Albrecht Dürer (ca. 1520)

Long before Disney’s The Lion King, the German-born artist Albrecht Dürer was already fascinated by these magnificent beasts. In the 16th century animals were not considered appropriate subjects for artistic depiction, unless they featured in ancient myth.

Consider, for example, Dürer’s woodcut based on Samson rending the lion (below). This was made nearly twenty years before the sketch above. The difference is striking. The woodcut features a mythical beast that looks nothing like a real lion, whereas the sketch depicts actual lions with a striking degree of verisimilitude and even personality.

Dürer traveled widely in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. He kept a notebook in which he sketched these lions after seeing them at a zoo in Ghent.

He later wrote, “denn wahrhaftig steckt die Kunst in der Natur. Wer sie heraus kann reißen, der hat sie.” ( “For in truth Art resides in the natural world. Whoever can extract it, is an artist.”)

These lions are not only beautiful, they signal a tremendous shift in the way an artist looks at the world. Dürer captured them as artistic subjects in their own right. They have as much character as any official portrait.

Pay careful attention to the hair. No-one had ever used a fine-line to sketch hair quite like that. We know from Dürer’s contemporaries that he was a bit obsessed with hair, and was proud of his own long manes.

Indeed, in the same way that Dürer’s full-frontal self-portrait resembles Christ (below), so too is the lion often considered a christological symbol. For Dürer, the hair formed a connection between the lion, the artist, and the divine.

Dürer self-portrait (1500)

Above all, the lions show a great draftsman at work. From a contemporary standpoint his sketches stand out to us as almost more impressive than his woodcuts. They remind us that art begins with simple observation, and that anyone can pick up a pencil and paper to begin sketching the world as they see it.

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