The curls of Heracles from the Buchach Town Hall: a form frozen in time

Creation

This limestone fragment is a surviving part of the outstanding monumental group “Heracles tearing open the jaws of the Nemean lion” or “Samson”. Johann Georg Pinsel created the sculpture in the mid-18th century to adorn the parapet of the Buchach Town Hall. In this allegorical scene, intended to symbolise victory over evil and the triumph of justice, the figure of the ancient hero achieved the highest degree of sculptural tension. Heracles’ head, with its thick locks of hair, completed the complex silhouette of a dynamic Baroque triangle unfolding against the backdrop of the sky.

Description

Archival photographs capture the original grandeur and the expressive turn of the hero’s figure. At the same time, they allow us to see how seamlessly and naturally the textured hairstyle was integrated into the overall form of the nape and shoulders. Contemporary detailed photographic documentation of the object from various angles reveals a distinct fragment of the curls on this once-majestic head.

Despite the devastating force of time, which has transformed the stone into a porous, deeply weathered rock, the unique, strong relief of Pinsel’s chisel is clearly evident in the fragment. The master did not seek decorative fluidity: the strands of Heracles’ hair are modelled as deep, rounded cavities and sharp curls. They are perceived not as hair, but as a frozen, pulsating magmatic mass. Individual deep recesses created a powerful play of chiaroscuro at the height of the town hall, thanks to which the hero’s hairstyle appeared dynamic, almost alive, from a distance.

Today, stripped of its anatomical context, this limestone mass has finally lost its former figurative quality and transformed into a sculptural abstraction. Traces of soot, the patina of the ages and the deterioration of the stone have given it the appearance of a peculiar meteorite or a bizarre natural mineral. The fragment of Heracles’ curls is a unique work of artistic “non-finito” which, having passed through the trials of historical destruction, has been transformed into a self-sufficient and majestic monument to the fragility of art.