1592
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Hercules and Telephos is a 1592 by Hendrik Goltzius, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a muscular man holding a baby in a dark, arched space. The man is Hercules, and the baby is Telephos, his son. Goltzius drew this after seeing an ancient statue in Italy. He made the scene feel huge by looking up at it, like you’re standing right there. The shadows are deep, almost like a spotlight on the figures. To see how light and dark can shape a scene, look up *chiaroscuro*.
Hendrick Goltzius was one of many late Renaissance artists who felt compelled to travel to Italy as part of his artistic training. He went with one purpose—to study antique sculpture. Goltzius made drawings on-site and then made engravings after his designs once he returned to Haarlem in 1591. He portrayed the Hercules Telephos from a low viewpoint to capture the awesome experience of first encountering the famous monument. It stands within a shadowed niche, which Goltzius filled with thousands of crossed engraved lines to create a dramatic recess that pushes the sculpture into the light. The…
The 2nd-century Hercules Telephos was unearthed in the Campo de’Fiori in Rome and was on view at the Belvedere Courtyard of the Vatican by the time Hendrick Goltzius visited the city.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Hendrick Goltzius (German: , Dutch: ; né Goltz; January or February 1558 – 1 January 1617) was a German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter.
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