Tag: hercules

Calendar: December 16

A Year: Day to Day Men: 16th of December

Observing the Street Below

The sixteenth of December marks the beginning of the 1631 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a conical Italian volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava and unconsolidated material. The eruption, marked by columns of volcanic debris, ash and hot gases, buried many villages under the resulting lava flows. It is estimated that four-thousand people were killed by the eruption, which was so intense that it lowered the summit of Vesuvius by four hundred and fifty meters.

Located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Mount Vesuvius has a long historic and literary tradition. At the time of the 79 AD eruption, the volcano was considered a divinity of  nature. The Roman cities surrounding the volcano regarded Mount Vesuvius as being devoted to Hercules. This was particularly true for the city of Herculaneum ,which was named after its mythical founder. Frescoes depicting Vesuvius as a serpent decorated many of the household shrines in Pompeii;  inscriptions on walls linked the power of the god Jupiter to the volcano, IOVI VESVVIO, or Jupiter Vesuvius.

Mount Vesuvius has erupted multiple times with varying grades of severity. All of its eruptions included explosive outbursts named Plinian after the Roman writer Pliny the Younger, who published a detailed account of the 79 AD eruption that killed his uncle. That eruption was largest and most destructive of all Vesuvius eruptions. Its cloud of super-heated gases and particles reached a height of thirty-three kilometers. The molten rock, pumice and hot ash ejecta reached sped at a rate of  one and a half million tons per second. This volcanic event destroyed several Roman towns and completely obliterated Pompeii and Herculaneum under massive pyroclastic surges and ash fall deposits.

Today, Mount Vesuvius is considered the world’s most dangerous volcano. This is due to two main factors: it has erupted violently and frequently through the years and the large number of people living in its vicinity. The area surrounding Mount Vesuvius is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. Three million people live near enough to be affected by an eruption, with at least six-hundred thousand in the danger zone. Mount Vesuvius is among the most closely monitored volcanoes in the world. The network consists of a number of fixed seismic stations on the surface of the earth with sensors that detect the motion of the soil, changes in the gravimetric field and indicative shifts in the magnetic masses in the subsurface.  

Commodus Hercules

Michael Beckschebe, “Commodus Hercules”, Date Unknown, Silver Gelatin Print

This marble bust is titled “Commodus Hercules”, a marble portrait sculpture created sometime in 180-193 AD, more probably in 192 AD.   The bust is one of the most famous masterpieces of Roman portraiture and depicts Emperor Commodus in the guise of Hercules. Commodus has been given the attributes of Hercules:  the emblematic lion’s skin,, the club in this right hand, and the golden apples of Hesperides in his left hand.

The incredibly well-preserved bust is placed on a complex allegorical composition. Two kneeling Amazons besiege a globe decorated with the signs of the zodiac and hold aloft a cornucopia, which is entwined with a Peltaion, the Amazons’ characteristic shield.

The celebratory intent that, through a wealth of symbols, imposes the divine cult of the Emperor, is further underlined by the two marine Tritons flanking the central figure to express his deification. The group was recovered in an underground room of the Horti Lamiani complex, where it had probably been hidden.

Reblogged with thanks to http://mytro.tumblr.com

Added thanks to http://ganymedesrocks.tumblr.com for providing the information.

Photo taken in 2008 by Michael Beckschebe

Emile Antoine Bourdelle

 

Photographer Unknown, “Emile Antoine Bourdelle and Model for His Bronze Herakles the Archer”, circa 1905, Gelatin Silver Print

Trained first in Montauban and then in Toulouse, Emile Bourdelle started work as an assistant in Rodin’s studio. The two men were bound together by mutual admiration and respect, even if Bourdelle’s desire for synthesis and construction in planes soon opposed him to Rodin’s analytical modelling.

From 1905, Bourdelle sought to simplify his lines: “Contain, maintain and master are the rules of construction,” he told his pupils over and over again. He looked to mythology for many of his subjects such as “Hercules the Archer” which enabled him to experiment on a large scale. In his own terms, Apollo was “undertaken in an attempt to master the purest aspect of my deep vision, going far beyond all past flights, I brought to it – more than human blood, bone, cartilage and muscles – the enveloping structure of its forces.”

Not only the hero’s victory over the monsters, but also Bourdelle’s victory over his own high-spirited inspiration, this work is remarkable both for its tension and for its balanced construction. The dynamics come from the interaction of solids and voids, brutal force and balance. The nude figure denotes power, high-strung energy, pulled taut between the arm bending the bow and the foot braced against the rock. The references to primitive Greek sculpture and Roman art – the almond shaped eyes, the nose extending in a straight line from the forehead, jutting cheekbones and brows – act as catalyst for a modern approach.

The gilded bronze sculpture “Hercules Killing the Birds of Lake Stymphalis” was completed in 1909. It is in the collection of the Musee d’Orsay, France.