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Theme: "Lions"

Lions are the king of ornamental fauna. And there is plenty of variety among their ranks in NYC, as Figs. 1- 3 attest.

Belief in the power of mythical beasts to ward off evil spirits persisted throughout the Middle Ages...By the Gothic period, artists and sculptors no longer took monsters seriously, and concentrated more on human forms or animal forms with human characteristics...In all styles the representation of the eyes of the lion are much closer to the oval eye of humans than to the round eye of the feline species. (Ernest Burden, "Building Facades: Faces, Figures and Ornamental Detail")