Elephant with Tusks and Nijinski Hare

"Thematically the choice of the hare is really quite a rich and expressive sort of model; [...] the investment of human attributes into the animal world is a very well practiced device, in literature and film etcetera and is really quite poignant. And on a practical level, if you consider what conveys situation and meaning and feeling in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact far more limited than the device of investing an animal - a hare especially - with the expressive attributes of a human being. The ears, for instance, are really able to convey far more than a squint in an eye of a figure, or a grimace on the face of a model." (B. Flanagan, in: 'Barry Flanagan. Recent Sculpture', New York 1994, p. 5.)