Hercules Expelling the Faun from Omphale's Bed

Hercules Expelling the Faun from Omphale's Bed at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, painted around 1590, depicts a comic mythological episode of the hero's jealousy. This lighter mythological subject shows Tintoretto working in a more playful vein. Tintoretto's light comic treatment of this Herculean episode shows his ability to move between the gravitas of his major religious commissions and lighter cabinet pictures for private enjoyment. Tintoretto executed numerous mythological paintings for the Doge's Palace and patrician collections, demonstrating mastery of a genre requiring learned iconographic knowledge and the sensuous figure painting that was the Venetian tradition's special strength. His mythological paintings combine rapid assured draftsmanship with the Venetian celebration of the female body in natural settings. The combination of classical subject matter, Venetian light, and dynamic composition gives his mythological pictures a distinctive vitality that sets them apart from Veronese's more measured allegories and the more purely sensuous mythologies of Titian.

The dynamic composition captures the moment of confrontation with Tintoretto's characteristic energy. The nude figures and dramatic lighting demonstrate his command of anatomy and atmospheric effects.