Showing posts with label Young Hercules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Young Hercules. Show all posts

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Young Hercules

On display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's newly renovated Greek and Roman Galleries is this statue of YOUNG HERCULES. The youthful Hercules is depicted with the two items most associated with him -- his club and the skin of the Nemean lion. The lion's skin represents the first of Hercules' twelve labours, where he had to slay and skin the lion that had been terrorizing the area around Nemea. The lion had skin so thick that it was impervious to weapons, even Hercules' club (made from an olive tree that he pulled out of the ground. In the end, Hercules choked it to death eventually managed to skin the beast. Thereafter, Hercules wore the impenetrable hide as armor. The sculpture itself dates from the Flavian period (68 - 98 AD), and most likely was excavated from public baths near the Pantheon in Rome which were constructed under rule of Nero.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Statues at the Met's Greek and Roman Galleries


On a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I made these images of a statue of a nude male, and young Hercules at the Greek and Roman Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
Description of Greek and Roman Art from the official website:
The Met's collection of Greek and Roman art contains more than 35,000 works dated through A.D. 312. The Greek and Roman collection dates back to the founding of the museum -- in fact, the museum's first accessioned object was a Roman sarcophagus, still currently on display. Though the collection naturally concentrates on items from ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, these historical regions represent a wide range of cultures and artistic styles, from classic Greek black-figure and red-figure vases to carved Roman tunic pins. Several highlights of the collection include the Euphronios krater depicting the death of Sarpedon (whose ownership has since been transferred to the Republic of Italy), the monumental Amathus sarcophagus, and a magnificently detailed Etruscan chariot known as the "Monteleone chariot". The collection also contains many pieces from far earlier than the Greek or Roman empires -- among the most remarkable are a collection of early Cycladic sculptures from the mid-third millennium BCE, many so abstract as to seem almost modern. The Greek and Roman galleries also contain several large classical wall paintings and reliefs from different periods, including an entire reconstructed bedroom from a noble villa in Boscoreale, excavated after its entombment by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. In 2007, the Met's Greek and Roman galleries were expanded to approximately 60,000 square feet (6,000 m²), allowing the majority of the collection to be on permanent display.