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HENDRIK GOLTZIUS
Dutch, 1558-1617
The Farnese Hercules, ca. 1592
Engraving. 16 1/4 x 11 5/8 in. (41 x 30 cm)
Gift of Paul Ehrenfest, Class of 1932, and Elizabeth K. Ehrenfest. 77.28.7
Hendrik Goltzius, who spent most of his career in Haarlem, a city just
west of Amsterdam, was by far the most influential Dutch Mannerist printmaker.
He responded, by turns, to the exaggerated High Mannerism of Bartholomeus
Spranger in Antwerp, the classical sculpture he saw in Rome, and the work
of the great Renaissance masters of engraving, Albrecht Dürer and Lucas
van Leyden; even the latter "imitations," however, are infused
with Goltzius's technical and emotional intensity, expressed in highly concentrated
swirls of engraved lines that communicate an equally energetic inner life.
During his stay in Italy in 1590-91, Goltzius was particularly impressed
by the ancient Roman sculpture he saw there, of which he made many copies.
The most dramatic of these was his engraving of the Farnese Hercules, executed
shortly after his return to Haarlem, but not published until after his death.
The virtuoso handling of the burin here is as complex and engrossing, as
masterful, as the all-powerful muscles they describe.
The Farnese Hercules was discovered in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome in
1540 and was soon installed within the arcade around the courtyard of the
Farnese Palace, where Goltzius would have seen it. |
