The Essex Lectures in Art History 2022 Lecture I: Life, Death, Captivity and the Romantic Lion Image

The School of Philosophy and Art History hold the Essex Lectures in Art History each year. The June 2022 lectures are titled 'Myth and Menagerie: Seeing Lions in Nineteenth Century France'

Lecture I: Life, Death, Captivity and the Romantic Lion Image

What kinds of relationships between artists and lions were possible in the spaces of the Muséum of Natural History in Paris during the romantic era? This talk positions the body of romantic lion imagery produced by Eugène Delacroix and Antoine-Louis Barye as a space of encounter between lions and the humans who eagerly sought them out. While Delacroix and Barye’s images of lions are prized objects within accounts of romanticism for their scintillating drama and staging of the illusion of wild nature, I argue that art history’s focus on singular human artistic achievement obscures other histories that might be told about interspecies entanglements.   Across the bars of the cage, in the comparative anatomy laboratory and in the taxidermy galleries of the Muséum’s institutional space, Delacroix and Barye forged their imagery in contingent relationship to the animal subjects who they encountered.  My talk attempts to make room for the lion subjects without whom there could be no romantic lion pictures.

Each lecture is one hour, followed by a 45-minute Q&A session.

If you would like to join this lecture, either in person or via Zoom, please email spahpg@essex.ac.uk to register.