Eugene Delacroix, Lion Devouring a Rabbit, 1856

On the Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin in 1859, shaped the world of science and the secular world forever. Eugene Delacroix created Lion Devouring a Rabbit only three years prior to Darwin's masterwork. Within these three years of contemplation for his new painting, buzz about "Natural Selection" and "Descent with modification" zipped throughout the ears of all Europeans.

In Darwin's third chapter, titled "Struggle for Existence," he describes the direct competition among and between species. The world plays a balance game of keeping life in check. On one side, rabbits have been known to reproduce rapidly and could overpopulate a given area with bunnies. The lions (or predators) counteract the immense amounts of rabbits by eating the majority.

Now lets say that within this large springtime rabbit population, there were some exceptionally fast rabbits that could escape a lion's clutches. Of course, it's not all that simple, but the species exhibits signs of evolution and natural selection. On the other hand, catastrophism, a concept thought of by Malthus, and strongly revered by Darwin, tells the tale of the world washing over itself with a cleansing of species. Or, it may be known as a catastrophe that can wipe out many species.

Darwin writes, "In looking at Nature, it is most necessary to keep the foregoing considerations always in mind never to forget that every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers; that each lives by a struggle at some period of its life; that heavy destruction inevitably falls either on the young or old." 
For the destruction of Delacroix's rabbit, it certainly has reached its "heavy destruction." The dark mosses show nature's true colors for destruction and survival of the fittest. The expressive and romantic exaggeration of the lion's mane gets down to business, and no matter how beautiful he may be, he still destroys so his kind can move forward, knowing nothing of how he contributes to the success of natural selection.