Hercules and the Hydra

Zurbarán painted Hercules and the Hydra around 1634 as one of his ten Hercules paintings for the Hall of Realms in the Buen Retiro Palace. The subject — the second of Hercules' twelve labors, in which he killed the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra — demanded the most physically dramatic figure arrangement of the series, the hero's muscular struggle against the multiple serpent heads requiring a composition of concentrated, almost sculptural physical energy. Zurbarán's characteristic monumental figure style — drawing on his training in the Spanish tradition of religious painting — proves well suited to the classical mythological subject, though his Hercules lacks the classical ideal beauty of the Italian tradition in favor of a rawer, more physical Spanish interpretation of heroic strength.

The hero's struggle with the many-headed serpent is rendered with strong tenebrism, the firelight illuminating Hercules's muscular body in a manner that adapts Zurbarán's devotional lighting to a classical subject.