Chadwick began in 1955 to explore the motif of the animal as a theme that would become iconic for his work in the group of "Beasts". Earlier that year, he had visited Mykonos and Delos, where he saw the ancient remains of the famous Lion Avenue of Delos, dating from the 6th century BC. The threatening posture of the animal figures and their weathered forms inspired him to create the first "Beasts".
Here, Chadwick created an archetypal form of an unspecified animal, which can be understood as the epitome of the living creature. The construction of the sculpture from basic stereometric forms based on a framework of lines is derived from Chadwick's training as an architect and is a legacy of Constructivism.
The filigree structure that can be felt in this way is further enhanced by the contrast between the taut, massive body and the slender legs on which the figure rests. This is what defines the sculpture's particular dynamic expression and creates an irritating ambiguity. The impression of strength and heaviness is confronted on the other hand with a certain lightness, whereby Chadwick stages an interplay between stability and instability.
In addition to the geometric principles of Constructivism, the influence of Alexander Calder's Stabiles and Mobiles becomes tangible here. Yet, the draughtsman Chadwick was obviously also interested in Picasso's formal experiments of the 1940s and 1950s, since the bulls in Picasso's line drawings seem to be close relatives of Chadwick's "Beasts".
It is in this sense that Chadwick drives the form, the extension of the respective body surface to the extreme, to the limit of absurd distortion, in order to fully reveal the dynamics of movement and volume. Furthermore, beyond this sense of form and movement, Chadwick offers no guidelines for meaning or possibilities for interpretation, despite the threatening sounding title "Beast", which he understands, however, in the completely neutral sense of "creature" or "animal". For Chadwick, it is about the artistic expression of a vital force, as he himself formulated it in 1954:
“Art must be the manifestation of some vital force coming from the dark, caught by the imagination and translated by the artist’s ability and skill … Whatever the final shape, the force behind is … indivisible. When we philosophise upon this force, we lose sight of it. The intellect alone is too clumsy to grasp it” (Lynn Chadwick, The Listener, 21 October 1954) .