No animal has been drawn, carved and cast more often than the lion. It guards temples and libraries, stands on flags and coats of arms, and roars at the start of films. Most of the people who made those images had never seen one. The lion in art is an idea as much as an animal. This post follows it from the oldest paintings known to a retro wave print.
The oldest lions
In the Chauvet cave in southern France there are paintings of lions more than thirty thousand years old. They show cave lions, a species now extinct, drawn in groups with careful attention to the heads. From roughly the same period comes a figure carved from mammoth ivory and found in Germany: a standing human body with a lion's head. It is among the oldest sculptures in the world. People were thinking about lions, and about what it would be to have a lion's power, from the start.
Egypt and the Near East
The Egyptians gave the lion to their gods and kings. Sekhmet, goddess of war and healing, has the head of a lioness. The Great Sphinx at Giza has the body of a lion and the head of a king: strength governed by intelligence.
In Mesopotamia, lions lined the processional way into Babylon, moulded in glazed brick, about 575 BC. The palaces of the Assyrian kings were carved with scenes of royal lion hunts. The hunted lions in those reliefs are drawn with great feeling, and they are some of the finest animal carvings ever made.
Greece and Rome
Above the gate of the citadel at Mycenae, two lions stand either side of a column. They have been there for more than three thousand years. In Greek myth, the first labour of Heracles was to kill the Nemean lion, whose hide no weapon could pierce. He wore the skin afterwards, and it is how you recognise him in art. The Romans carved lions on tombs, as guardians of the dead.
The lion in religion
- The Lion of Judah is an ancient emblem of the tribe of Judah and of Jerusalem.
- In Christianity, the winged lion is the symbol of Saint Mark, and so of Venice, where he is patron. Saint Jerome is painted with a lion at his feet, after the story that he drew a thorn from its paw.
- In Buddhism, the lion stands for the Buddha's teaching, called the lion's roar. Lions support his throne.
- In Hinduism, the goddess Durga rides a lion, and Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu, is part man and part lion.
Guardian lions
Lions were never native to China. Knowledge of them came along the trade routes with Buddhism, and Chinese sculptors turned them into the stylised guardian lions that stand in pairs at the gates of temples, palaces and banks. One has a paw on a ball, the other on a cub. The same idea travelled the other way: stone lions guard public buildings across Europe and America, including the main branch of the New York Public Library and Trafalgar Square in London.
Heraldry
In medieval Europe the lion became the leading animal of heraldry. It appears on the arms of England, Scotland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and many more. Heralds had names for each pose.
- Rampant: rearing on its hind legs, claws out. The lion of Scotland.
- Passant: walking, with one forepaw raised. The three lions of England.
- Couchant: lying down with the head up.
- Sejant: sitting.
These lions are flat, stylised and brightly coloured. They are designs, made to be read at a distance on a shield or a banner. In that way they are close to a modern logo.
From emblem to animal
As Europeans began to see real lions in menageries, artists drew them from life. Albrecht Dürer sketched them. Rubens painted violent lion hunts. In the nineteenth century, Eugène Delacroix painted lions with real ferocity. Henri Rousseau, who never left France, painted a lion sniffing at a sleeping traveller under a full moon in The Sleeping Gypsy of 1897. It is one of the strangest and most loved lions in art.
The modern lion
The twentieth century put the lion to work. A roaring lion has opened the films of one Hollywood studio since the 1920s. Lions appear on car badges, football shirts and banknotes. In popular culture the lion is by turns a noble king, a cowardly companion and a hero of children's films. The image of a lion with a mane as a sign of strength and self-respect is everywhere, from tattoos to motivational posters.
What the lion means
- Strength and courage. The first meaning, in every culture.
- Kingship and authority. The lion as ruler.
- Protection. The guardian at the gate.
- Pride and dignity. A group of lions is called a pride, and the word fits.
- The sun. The golden coat and the mane like rays linked the lion with the sun, and with the zodiac sign of Leo, in high summer.
- Controlled power. A lion at rest is more impressive than one attacking. Many of the best lions in art are still.
The retro wave lion
Synthwave and vaporwave art likes to take grand old symbols and redraw them in the light of a screen: marble statues, palm trees, sunsets. The lion suits that treatment. It is a heraldic emblem redrawn in neon.
Our CRT Lion Retro Wave shows a lion's head in pale violet on a black ground, set inside thin frame lines, as if displayed on a dark monitor. It is calm and frontal, like a lion on a coat of arms. The colour is the surprise. A lion is expected to be gold. In cool violet on black, it keeps its dignity and loses its heat. It looks modern and a little unearthly. See CRT and glitch art explained.
Hanging a lion
- Give it a place of authority. Above a desk, behind a chair, at the end of a hall, over a fireplace. A lion suits a position where it presides.
- Hang it alone, or as the centre of a group. It doesn't share attention well.
- A study or office is the classic room. It also suits a games room, a gym and a bedroom for someone who wants to start the day with some resolve.
- Dark walls suit a lion on a dark ground. See wall art for dark walls.
- Purple and black go with the CRT Lion. See a purple setup, start to finish.
As a gift
A lion suits someone born under Leo, between late July and late August. It suits a promotion, a graduation or the start of a business, as a picture about courage. It suits a father. And it suits anyone who simply likes big cats. See art for cat people and new job gifts.
More animals
For other animals and what they mean, see wolf symbolism, fox symbolism and deer and stag symbolism. Browse the canvas art collection.