Pastel and Colored Pencil on paper

16 x 20

 

This beautiful bridge in Budapest, Hungary links the two cities; Buda and Pest.  I like to walk in cities at night and never feel uncomfortable as is sometimes the case in American cities because it oftentimes seems as though Europeans are at their most active in the evening.

 

The Lion Bridge, also known as the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, was the first permanent bridge across the Danube River, and was opened in 1849.  It has a rather interesting story attached to its history.  Among the anecdotes relating to it, the most popular is that the lions were sculpted without tongues and the sculptor was so mocked that he jumped into the Danube in a fit of shame. The lions do in fact have tongues, though they cannot be seen from the pedestrian's point of view, so there was no real reason for his overly desperate end. 

 

The sculptor lived into the 1890s, and the only message he sent before his death to the jeering people was "Your wife should have a tongue just as my lions have, and woe will be unto you!" That seems a bit dramatic to me but then again, Hungarians tend to be like that or so I'm told.