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Daniel in the Lions’ Den, 1614/1616, NGA

NARRATOR: Looking upward, the Old Testament hero Daniel beseeches God to save him. Angry that Daniel refused to worship the Babylonian gods, the Babylonian king had thrown him to the lions, expecting them to tear him apart.

KIRK NICKEL: So Rubens has selected a moment from that story where Daniel is alone in the pit, looking up to the heavens, praying for his safety. One of the most intriguing parts of this painting is the collection of emotional expressions that are shown through these lions.

NARRATOR: Rubens could have studied real lions in the royal menagerie in Brussels. He has done an astonishing job of conveying emotion, both through the lions’ expressions, and through Daniel’s face and his tense, knotted posture.

KIRK NICKEL: - You feel this taught sense of agitation, expectation, hopefulness, fear, all at once.

He has an interest in finding the precise moment in the narrative when human experience is stretched to some ultimate limit and this allows him to demonstrate his skill at expressing these extreme human emotions.