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Hendrick Goltzius

The Great Hercules or 'Knollenman'

1589
engraving

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In the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · as of July 2026

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FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

The exaggerated and unnatural musculature of this figure may suggest that the Netherlandish artist Hendrick Goltzius had never studied a real human body. Indeed, he pulled from a mixture of sources including classical sculpture, Italian art, and his imagination. Goltzius ushered in Mannerism in Northern Europe, a style that featured exaggerated forms and metaphorical and allegorical subject matter. Known for his skill with an engraving burin, he transformed the technique, creating engraved lines that taper and swell to emphasize volume and form to extreme effect.

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