Art History

Affection of Greek Art in Hercules Killing the Centaur Nessus

When people first see the painting- Hercules Killing the Centaur Nessus, in the Fine Art Museum, they probably would make a guess that the painting was from ancient Greece. However, the painting was made by Sebastiano Ricci, an Italian artist, at c. 1700 for describing a story about Hercules. Event though some people, including me, have never heard about his story, we would suppose the main role in this panting probably was a hero in ancient Greece. In spite of the story people might know or not, it is interesting to discussing why the painting makes people to have vision of Greek art. When analyzing, we find out the painting style was affected deeply by Greek art, and we find out several symbols below.

Centaur, there is no doubt that centaurs are one of the strongest features in the Greek art. When checking out different arts history, people hard to see any creatures like centaurs in their art. No matter the centaur is truly lived in the ancient or not, it is just form a very special style when people comparing it with other arts of countries. In addition, centaurs usually were the symbols of uncivilized, alcoholic, violence, and criminal passionel. Those effects resulted centaur fighting usually appeared in Greek art works.

The other figure of effecting in the painting in my opinion is combating, fighting, and violence. Fighting is a typical object in the Greek art. For example, Skopas, Gallic Chieftain Killing His Wife and Himself, and Stag Hunt are all inserted the element of beauty of violence. Indeed, what makes Greek artists love violence is probably because their history and culture that Greek people were engaged in many wars that they drew what they had seen and experienced in their lives. When we pull the sense back, we can tell this painting probably have a lot of chance that the painter loves Greek history and were affected by their art style.

One thing is also...