Paard aangevallen door een leeuw 1772 - 1773

Curator: Before us is "Paard aangevallen door een leeuw," or "Horse Attacked by a Lion," a print made by Antoine Alexandre Joseph Cardon around 1772 or 1773, housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: What strikes me is the dynamic tension achieved with such sparse lines. The composition seems ready to burst, and the subject matter is rendered so elegantly it lends this barbaric image some baroque aesthetic. Curator: Indeed, the artist has employed a keen understanding of line weight and cross-hatching to define form. Consider how the musculature of the horse is subtly rendered in contrast with the heavier, more definite lines that describe the lion's mane. This emphasizes not just their shapes but the tension between them, really a classical "form" as you said. Editor: Absolutely. And culturally, this scene of the lion dominating the horse speaks volumes. The horse is often a symbol of nobility, freedom, whereas the lion here is primal, predatory instinct itself. The subjugation carries the weight of the lion as apex predator. It's fascinating to witness how those meanings carry from epoch to epoch with remarkable consistency. Curator: The use of engraving is meticulous. It speaks to the artistic conventions and visual styles of the time. The landscape in the background is minimalist and simple as if they aren't characters as much as the artist seeks to display these archetypal and essentialized animal figures, divorced from the contingencies of space and time. Editor: It really shows you how enduring some of these cultural symbols are. Curator: And from an artistic standpoint, it’s a masterclass in capturing form and texture with minimal means. Editor: It's thought-provoking how much emotional content a relatively small engraved print can convey about control, predation and power. Curator: Thank you for highlighting such key visual details, all which create a surprisingly dramatic composition.