Hercules at the Crossroad
Medium
engraving
Dimensions
image: 32.4 × 22.2 cm · sheet: 32.4 × 22.2 cm
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1961.170
Tags
male
About this artwork
In his journal, Albrecht Dürer referred to this enigmatic engraving as “the Hercules,” but the image is not a typical representation of the mythological hero’s 12 labors. The subject derives from a Greek parable, where Hercules decides between a life of pleasure or one of virtue. The moral dispute plays out here as a battle between two personifications, Virtue, wielding a club, and Pleasure, lying with a satyr. Hercules’s crossroad is a copse of trees between two paths: the ascent to civilizatio...