Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra

Gustave Moreau · 1875–76

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

179.3 × 154 cm (70 9/16 × 60 5/8 in.); Framed: 226.7 × 201.9 cm (89 1/4 × 79 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

Moreau's Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra is one of the most visually arresting interpretations of the Greek hero's second labour — a scene of mythic struggle rendered in molten colour and obsessive detail. Gustave Moreau was the defining figure of French Symbolism, more interested in the psychological and spiritual dimension of myth than in classical heroics. He built his canvases through meticulous layering — glazes, impasto passages, and jewel-like surface details that give his work an almost encrusted richness. In this painting, the writhing Hydra coils through a dark, swampy landscape while Hercules stands above it in an attitude of almost contemplative power, more saint than strongman. Moreau bequeathed his Paris studio to the French state on his death in 1898, preserving thousands of his works and studies in what is now the Musée Gustave Moreau — a monument to the depth and obsessiveness of his practice. A hand-painted oil reproduction captures the layered depth and dark palette of the original faithfully — the kind of surface complexity that a print or digital image inevitably flattens out.