
It is not that the Lion has been excluded from the history of art, but rather that he has been presented badly – and he never wins. When the Lion had finished his tour of the mansion, continues Newman, “his entertainer asked him what he thought of the splendours it contained; and he in reply did full justice to the riches of its owner and the skill of its decorators, but he added, ‘Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists.'”
Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, p. 8