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Herakles the Archer
Herakles the Archer

Herakles the Archer

Artist (Montauban, France, 1861 - 1929)
Date1908 - 1909
Mediumbronze
ClassificationsSculptures
DimensionsOverall: Height: 57.5 cm, Width: 59 cm, Depth: 29.5 cm
Plinth Size: Height: 114.5 cm, Width: 64 cm, Depth: 41 cm
AcquisitionPurchased in 1956 with income from the Jaffrey Fund.
CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0
LocationOn Display - Gallery 10
Object numberABDAG004586
Historic Title
  • Herakles drawing his bow against the Stymphalian Birds
About MeEmile Antoine Bourdelle broke with his French academic sculptural training in 1885. Seven years later he was assistant to the great sculptor Auguste Rodin. Deep within this figure can be seen a Rodin-like torso, with its plastic modelling and sensuous rippling surface of moving light. Yet Bourdelle's vision not only embraces monumentality - he is as Rodin said, 'a pioneer of the future'.

Herakles braces against a rock, so as to pull back the string of his bow - a bow of epic proportions. With his barbarian strength and savagely mechanical head he unmistakably fires his arrow into the manifestos of modernity, such as the Futurist Manifestos of 1910, which proclaimed a love of machinery, roaring engines and 'that universal dynamism must be rendered as dynamic sensation ...'. Yet this does not detract from Bourdelle's synthesis of classical themes and his interest in the heroic in art.

This is one of a number of smaller versions and studies made in bronze and is a quarter the size of the original sculpture. The Musée Bourdelle in Paris is dedicated to his work: (http://www.paris.org/Musees/Bourdelle/info.html).

ADOPT AN ARTWORK. This artwork is available for Adoption. To find out more please email AAGMSupport-Us@aberdeencity.gov.uk
More About Me
The sixth labour of Herakles (aka Hercules) was to defeat the man-eating Stymphalian birds, which he did by frightening them with a rattle and then shooting them with a bow.
Exhibitions