In T"he Punishment of Hercules" by Pietro Berettini, known as Pietro Cortona, the hero adopts the much-loved pose of the Apollo Belvedere (now in the Vatican Museum). This seated Hellenic figure of a muscular naked man, with its anatomically precise delineation of the limbs, its harmonious proportions and complicated shift of the body axis, became a much-studied and varied motif in both painting and sculpture. The sweeping, tense pose accorded with Baroque design principles. In Cortona’s case, it was well suited to illustrating the difficult and conflicting situation in which Hercules is presented here.
According to Ovid, as punishment for a murder he had committed, Hercules was bound to serve Queen Omphale for a year, wearing women’s clothes and doing women’s work. The moment when the ancient hero is disarmed is shown here: putti rob him of his lion-skin and club, and equip him with a distaff and a red dress with a costly girdle. Another putto touches the humiliatedhero with the weakening arrow of love. Cortona’s practice in handling the monumental dimensions of frescoes shows in the completely natural way the figure of Hercules dominates the painting. His expression is one of effortless power, achieved in particular through the skilful modelling of the torso with the light striking it from the side. The strong, bright colours correspond to the even distribution of light in the painting. |
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Oil on canvas
height 300 cm, width 200 cm
Schönborn-Buchheim Collection, Inv.-No. G067
Provenance: 1746 listed in Friedrich Karl von Schönborn’s gallery catalogue
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