![]() ![]() ![]() Behind the proudly barbaric figure blue rivers meander through a broad landscape of green and brown fields, the sky above an enamel blue. These paintings of two labors of the famous mythological hero are smaller duplicates which belonged to the Gondi family in the early 17th century they are. The fragment originally belonged to a colossal statue feautring Hercules fighting the Lernaean Hydra. The dramatic force of the episode is expressed in the hero's grimace of fatigue and horror, but also his certainty of victory. Antonio del Pollaiuolo worked at time when thorough studies of anatomy were being made, and he therefore renders the human body realistically in its moments of greatest emotional excitement. Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, sent the demigod Heracles to slay the Lernaean Hydra as the second of the set of labours that the hero had to complete, in order. The outlines are very sharply defined, and the movement of nerves and tendons observed down to the last detail. Here too is represented a ferocious fight between the hero, his body tensed into an agile, muscular mass and the legendary multi-headed monster. ![]() It is based off the original Hydra, a monster that fought the original Hercules in the mythical Greek legend. This small panel, the companion-piece to "Hercules and Antaeus", refers to three panels representing the Labours of Hercules which Antonio del Pollaiuolo painted for Lorenzo de' Medici around 1460, lost works we know about only from later versions. The Hydra is a giant dragon-like monster that appeared as a minor antagonist in Disney's thirty-fifth full-length animated feature film, Hercules. ![]()
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