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| Lullaby for Lions, oil on linen, 48" x 60" |
I have been working on this painting for several months,
but it has been in my mind for a long time. The first kernel of an idea
happened on July 1, 2015 when I heard on the radio that Cecil the Lion had been
shot after being lured from the sanctuary by an illegal party of big game
hunters. I was in my car and I remember thinking thank god I wasn’t at
that stage of my life when I was ferrying small children around in my minivan.
One of them would certainly have heard the report, as children have finely
tuned ears for things like that. And I would have had to come up with some
explanation of why a man would want to shoot and kill a beautiful, magnificent,
unsuspecting living creature. And I would not have had an explanation that
would not destroy a child’s vision of humanity for the rest of their lives- at
least not at that moment. I think I would have said something like "well as a good
human being it is our responsibility to guard and protect beauty, creatures at
risk, and things more vulnerable than ourselves". And then I envisioned a child’s
answer, a salve to soften the horrid, nightmarish image of poor Cecil dead on
the ground with a poor excuse for a human standing over him, grinning
victoriously.
...So the vision was a little boy who had invited the lions into a
safe place, a sanctuary where he could read them stories and sing them
lullabies and let them sleep peacefully…not a worry in their lion hearts.
When I started doing sketches and research for the actual
painting, I was drawn again to Rousseau. Studying his paintings over the past few
years I have been attracted to them in a different way than ever before. I am
in awe of his inventiveness and unencumbered capacity to create form and
narrative without any responsibility to realism or naturalism. I have fallen in
love with his tigers and lions and fantastic botanical forms. I borrowed
his palette and landscape elements from The
Sleeping Gypsy for the setting for Lullaby
for Lions.
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| Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897 |
Other lions that I looked at are the beautiful sculptures outside the New York Public Library, named Patience and Fortitude.
And a tiny
statue that was given to me as a gift. It sat like a muse on my painting table
while I worked...and then there were my own cats who wander in and out of the studio and conveniently curl up at just the right moment.
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| Otis and tiny lion sculpture |
I also fell in love with the paintings of lions by the French painter
Aime Nicholas Morot (1850-1913) whose work I didn’t know until I started looking at lions. He could really paint lions.  |
| Morot Lion |
And many thanks to the young boy next door who modeled for
the little boy in the painting. At the time his hair had grown beautifully long and unruly like a lion's mane. When I told him he was to be reading to lions, he took that pose like he had read to lions everyday of his life. Perhaps he has. I
know for sure he will never, ever shoot one.