Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra
1875–76
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
179.3 × 154 cm (70 9/16 × 60 5/8 in.); Framed: 226.7 × 201.9 cm (89 1/4 × 79 1/2 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
20579
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In order to atone for killing his family, the mythical ancient Greek hero Hercules was tasked with completing twelve difficult feats. His second task was to slay the Lernaean Hydra, a water monster with multiple serpentine heads. Gustave Moreau depicted their encounter in this work, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1876, indulging his taste for the ghoulish. Hercules confronts the Hydra in a swampy landscape, rendered as a primordial ooze of brown paint and strewn with the fragmented and decomposi...
About the Artist
Gustave Moreau · 1826–1898
French painter, Paris. Comment on works: religious, mythology, history, allegory