Hercules and Antaeus 1485 - 1492

This bronze plaquette, made by Moderno in the late 15th or early 16th century, captures the fierce struggle between Hercules and Antaeus. Antaeus, the giant, draws strength from the earth, his mother. Hercules, recognizing this, lifts him into the air, breaking his contact with the ground. Note the powerful embrace, a visual motif echoing countless struggles across epochs. Think of the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh wrestling Enkidu, or even the biblical Jacob wrestling the angel. These images tap into a primal, collective memory of conflict and dominance. Consider the raised arm of Antaeus, a gesture of desperation— a 'pathos formula'. We see this same gesture in depictions of the damned in medieval Last Judgement scenes, a universal expression of suffering. This plaquette is not just a depiction of a mythological wrestling match, but a potent symbol of the human condition. The way these symbols resurface through the ages speaks volumes about our shared, subconscious understanding of life's eternal struggles.