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Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra

Painting depicting the god Hercules confronting the Hydra, a mythical creature. Amidst towering, rocky cliffs, Hercules stands on the left of the painting, dressed in clothing that exposes his figure. He looks to the right, where the seven-headed hydra rears up, bearing its teeth. A nude figure of a woman is on the ground in front of the Hydra, and an orange sun peeks from behind red clouds in the background.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Painting depicting the god Hercules confronting the Hydra, a mythical creature. Amidst towering, rocky cliffs, Hercules stands on the left of the painting, dressed in clothing that exposes his figure. He looks to the right, where the seven-headed hydra rears up, bearing its teeth. A nude figure of a woman is on the ground in front of the Hydra, and an orange sun peeks from behind red clouds in the background.

Date:

1875/76

Artist:

Gustave Moreau
French, 1826-1898

About this artwork

Gustave Moreau developed a highly personal vision that combined history, myth, mysticism, and a fascination with the exotic and bizarre. Rooted in the Romantic tradition, Moreau focused on the expression of timeless enigmas of human existence rather than on recording or capturing the realities of the material world.

Long fascinated with the myth of Hercules, Moreau gave his fertile imagination free rein in Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra. Looming above an almost primordial ooze of brown paint is the seven-headed Hydra, a serpentine monster whose dead and dying victims lie strewn about a swampy ground. Calm and youthful, Hercules stands amid the carnage, weapon in hand, ready to sever the Hydra’s seventh, “immortal” head, which he will later bury.

Despite the violence of the subject, the painting seems eerily still, almost frozen. Reinforcing this mysterious quality is Moreau’s ability to combine suggestive, painterly passages with obsessive detail. The precision of his draftsmanship and the otherworldliness of his palette are the result of his painstaking methods; he executed numerous preliminary studies for every detail in the composition. In contrast to such exactitude, the artist also made bold, colorful watercolors that eschew detail, as exercises to resolve issues of composition and lighting.

Moreau seems to have intended this mythological painting to express contemporary political concerns. He was profoundly affected by France’s humiliating military defeat by Prussia in 1870–71. Whether or not Hercules literally personifies France and the Hydra represents Prussia, this monumental work portrays a moral battle between the forces of good and evil, and of light and darkness, with intensity and power.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Gustave Moreau

Title

Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1875–1876

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Inscribed at lower left: Gustave Moreau

Dimensions

179.3 × 154 cm (70 9/16 × 60 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Eugene A. Davidson

Reference Number

1964.231

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/20579/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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