Lion Hunt

Hunters on rearing horses drive their spears into lunging lions in a furious, interlocking brawl of man, beast, and weapon - one rider thrown and about to be mauled, every body strained to the limit. Rubens charges the scene with raw violence and circular motion, the manes, muscles, and flying drapery whipped into a single churning knot. Now in Munich, the Lion Hunt looks back to Leonardo's lost Battle of Anghiari and forward to Delacroix, the supreme Baroque image of the chase as a test of nerve and force between the human and the wild.