The beautiful blues and grays, framing the dark head of the hunter, are not quite "tied together" as in a typical finished Gérôme painting, and therefore much more vibrant. The contrast of the youth's smooth legs (finished) to the sketchy outlines of the accompanying figure's body serves as an enhancement to the modern eye. The sketchy figures in the background appear "out of focus", forcing the eye to concentrate on the magic procession in the foreground.

Gérôme, defending his principles of truth and nature to the end, was nevertheless not untouched by the effects of Symbolism in the 1880's. Several of his paintings depict lions as personifications of majesty, and titles like Solitude or Beatitude for images of lions are highly suggestive. In the present painting, one is grateful that the might of the lion and the elegance of the hunter are merely indicated, and that the intensity of the scene is not cluttered with details.

Fanny Hering, who saw the painting in Gérôme's studio, wrote that "the background never satisfied him". If this concern prevented Gérôme from finishing this painting, it served him very well indeed.

It is recorded by George Moore that Gérôme was quite startled when he saw Edgar Degas' painting Young Spartans (1860, reworked until 1880, unfinished) which bears quite an astonishing resemblance to Gérôme's Lion Hunt. Degas' sarcastic remark, "I suppose it is not quite Turkish enough for you, Gérôme?" explains in fact why the two paintings are so similar. The empty landscape without local landmarks, the lack of ethnical or historical detail, the scale and positioning of the figures in the landscape (in both paintings with a small group in the background) are certainly "not Turkish". Only the color differs vastly. Gérôme's palette is closer to the grey-blues of Puvis de Chavannes, e.g. in Vision of Antiquity (1887-90).