"The Lion's Bride" is a study in contrast, in values between light and dark, a spur to beginner art students everywhere to be bold and fearless when shading, sharply and strongly. As if the subject matter wasn't startling enough, the values between the white of the woman and the dark recesses from which the shadowy lion emerges add to the drama and tension of this allegory.
Austrian artist Gabriel Cornelius von Max's 1908 painting has largely been ensconced in private collections, but it caught the public's imagination at the time and was widely copied and replicated. It's the replicas that you see even now when you look through different online libraries. This (above) is the original, which is currently in a Chicago residence, and this is what inspired one of the most indelible scenes in the silent movie era. Cecil B. DeMille re-staged this scene, using a real lion, in his 1919 movie on the complications of love and class, "Male and Female". DeMille did have his doubts about casting a real lion with his star Gloria Swanson, discreetly asking her if she was menstruating because that could trigger the male to attack, and then at the last-minute deciding to scrap the scene entirely. But Swanson insisted:
“I said: ‘Mr. DeMille, you can’t do this to me. I want to do that scene - the lion’s bride scene…you don’t understand. When I was little girl, in my grandmother’s house, she has this painting - a replica of a painting called "The Lion’s Bride.” And here it was, a bride, with a lion on her back. She had gone to say goodbye to this cub she raised, and the lion killed her.'
'Oh,’ he said, 'Well alright, come on…'
"So down into this thing we go, and Mr. DeMille with a gun, revolver in his hand, no one else but the two trainers. And they bring out this fuzzy lion, and they claimed he’s a nice lion. Only two weeks after we had done this scene, did he almost kill someone. Any rate, we didn’t know that then." (from the 1980 documentary "Hollywood")
Swanson recalled being frightened by the painting as a girl, but that was nothing compared to shooting this fantasy sequence (the king, formerly the butler, gives Swanson's character, the virgin slave, the choice between offering herself to him or sacrificing her life to the lion). Years later she still shivered as she recalled laying her on her stomach, the trainers positioning the lion on her back, and the lion's breath on her "like hundreds of vibrators from the tips of your toes to every hair on your head."
The heroine in von Max's painting is not spared, however. She had been a trainer in her father's menagerie, working with the lion since he was a cub. There developed a deep love between the two, so deep that she visits him on her wedding day. The lion, sensing that he might be losing her, attacks her. Her fiance is running with the gun -- you can see him through the bars of the cage -- but he is too late. The damage is done.
Von Max's studies in mysticism and spiritism -- that the spiritual is at the core of all living things, including animals -- obviously worked their way into his art. It's not just a genre painting or a scene out of a historical moment. Spiritual is recognizing and working with the energy body, and what is one of the most powerful forms of energy? Our emotions. How deadly and destructive they become when unbalanced, with possessiveness and jealousy killing the very things we love most. Look at the expression he gives his lion. If he can't have her all to himself, no one can. Maybe he'll be shot at? He's in self-destruct mode -- I can't imagine him caring at this point. His eyes show no regret, and that paw, splayed with claws dug into the woman's haunch as if she were still alive.
Austrian artist Gabriel Cornelius von Max's 1908 painting has largely been ensconced in private collections, but it caught the public's imagination at the time and was widely copied and replicated. It's the replicas that you see even now when you look through different online libraries. This (above) is the original, which is currently in a Chicago residence, and this is what inspired one of the most indelible scenes in the silent movie era. Cecil B. DeMille re-staged this scene, using a real lion, in his 1919 movie on the complications of love and class, "Male and Female". DeMille did have his doubts about casting a real lion with his star Gloria Swanson, discreetly asking her if she was menstruating because that could trigger the male to attack, and then at the last-minute deciding to scrap the scene entirely. But Swanson insisted:
“I said: ‘Mr. DeMille, you can’t do this to me. I want to do that scene - the lion’s bride scene…you don’t understand. When I was little girl, in my grandmother’s house, she has this painting - a replica of a painting called "The Lion’s Bride.” And here it was, a bride, with a lion on her back. She had gone to say goodbye to this cub she raised, and the lion killed her.'
'Oh,’ he said, 'Well alright, come on…'
"So down into this thing we go, and Mr. DeMille with a gun, revolver in his hand, no one else but the two trainers. And they bring out this fuzzy lion, and they claimed he’s a nice lion. Only two weeks after we had done this scene, did he almost kill someone. Any rate, we didn’t know that then." (from the 1980 documentary "Hollywood")
Swanson recalled being frightened by the painting as a girl, but that was nothing compared to shooting this fantasy sequence (the king, formerly the butler, gives Swanson's character, the virgin slave, the choice between offering herself to him or sacrificing her life to the lion). Years later she still shivered as she recalled laying her on her stomach, the trainers positioning the lion on her back, and the lion's breath on her "like hundreds of vibrators from the tips of your toes to every hair on your head."
The heroine in von Max's painting is not spared, however. She had been a trainer in her father's menagerie, working with the lion since he was a cub. There developed a deep love between the two, so deep that she visits him on her wedding day. The lion, sensing that he might be losing her, attacks her. Her fiance is running with the gun -- you can see him through the bars of the cage -- but he is too late. The damage is done.
Von Max's studies in mysticism and spiritism -- that the spiritual is at the core of all living things, including animals -- obviously worked their way into his art. It's not just a genre painting or a scene out of a historical moment. Spiritual is recognizing and working with the energy body, and what is one of the most powerful forms of energy? Our emotions. How deadly and destructive they become when unbalanced, with possessiveness and jealousy killing the very things we love most. Look at the expression he gives his lion. If he can't have her all to himself, no one can. Maybe he'll be shot at? He's in self-destruct mode -- I can't imagine him caring at this point. His eyes show no regret, and that paw, splayed with claws dug into the woman's haunch as if she were still alive.
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