Hercules and Lichas

The maddened Hercules, poisoned by the shirt his wife sent him, seizes the terrified young attendant Lichas by the hair and a leg and hurls him to his death, the two bodies twisting in violent diagonal struggle. Antonio Canova, usually the sculptor of serene grace, here turns to raw fury and dynamic force, marble caught at the peak of a brutal action. Now in Rome, Hercules and Lichas is his most dramatic work - the suffering and rage of the hero exploding outward, classical restraint shattered by an outburst of agony and cruelty.