Today's is A Lion by Eleuterio Pagliano. Pagliano's dates are 1806 - 1903 and the print was made some time in the 1880s. An interesting thing about the artist was that he frequently volunteered to serve under Garibaldi in the various wars of independence and campaigns that led to the birth of modern Italy. This makes me wonder if the subject matter had a particular and personal meaning for him.
There seems to be very little information about this print. I have the notes from the display next to the print and a couple of paragraphs from the dealer who sold it. An edition was never made; this certainly appears to be a proof.
The key thing is that it represents a change in style for the artist; the vast majority of his work was in an academic or salon style. He started as a neo-classical painter before drifting towards Romanticism. His work appears to have been well done but dull. And in the midst of this context, this shaggy, mangy lion came ambling off the press.
The lion is far looser, economical and lively than much of his other work. You can almost feel the heat coming off his body, almost smell his stench. Such is the power of the print that when standing next to it that I wanted to swat away invisible flies.
It wasn't perhaps completely out of the blue; apparently his military service first drove the move from academia to romanticism and then urged him to move still further and, during the latter part of the century, his work became rawer.
This print is regarded as a an experiment. This I think is a shame. If he had pursued such experiments on a more regular basis perhaps he would be more remembered today.
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