HERCULES
BETWEEN VICE
AND VIRTUE
2025-01-28
Nour Tournier
Nour Tournier
© DORIAN LAFARGUE
(1) Hercules between Vice and Virtue or The Choice of Hercules, Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), 1596, oil on canvas, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
(2) Vault of the Camerino of Hercules, Palazzo Farnese, Rome © Ch. Mantuano
© DORIAN LAFARGUE
(1) Raphael, The Dream of the Knight, 1503–1504, tempera on wood, 17.8 × 17.6 cm, National Gallery, London
(2) Nicolas Poussin, The Choice of Hercules, 1636–1637, oil on canvas, 88.3 × 71.8 cm, The Palladian Villa, Stourhead House, Wiltshire
© DORIAN LAFARGUE
HERCULES
BETWEEN VICE
AND VIRTUE
2025-01-28
Nour Tournier
Carracci animates the scene by blending Correggio’s liveliness with Michelangelo’s dynamic figures. In the face of the crisis of cowardice — sometimes shameful, often indifferent — that pervades today’s creative circles, the scene’s decisive character may appear almost inconsequential. In the sixteenth century, however, the ethical stakes of the contrast between lust and poverty were central to humanist concerns.
(1) Hercules between Vice and Virtue or The Choice of Hercules, Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), 1596, oil on canvas, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
(2) Vault of the Camerino of Hercules, Palazzo Farnese, Rome © Ch. Mantuano
“Barely out of childhood, at that age when young people, newly masters of themselves, already reveal whether they will follow the path of virtue or that of vice, Hercules sat alone, uncertain which of the two roads offered to him to choose. Suddenly, he sees two women of majestic stature approach. One, combining nobility with beauty, wore no adornments other than those of nature; her eyes radiated modesty, her entire bearing reflected restraint; she was clad in white. The other carried the fullness that accompanies softness, and on her made-up face, white lead and rouge distorted her natural colors; her gait was haughty and proud, her glances audacious; dressed to reveal every charm, she constantly admired herself, her eyes seeking onlookers; indeed, she delighted in watching her own shadow.”
Thus begins The Choice of Hercules, a fable by Prodicius. In 1596, the painter Annibale Carracci drew inspiration from it for an oil on canvas commissioned for the camerino herculéen of Cardinal Farnese’s palace. At the center sits Hercules, pensive yet alert. To the left stands Virtue, pointing him toward the path he must take; to the right is Vice — or Voluptuousness — slightly more distant. Each promises happiness in a different form: the one through indulgence and idleness, the other through a long and arduous road.
Hercules emerges as the champion of self-mastery, becoming heroic precisely in the tragic space Carracci constructs for him. The rich background takes on metaphorical form: the path of Virtue is the steepest, a dead tree stump signaling the barrenness of moral guidance. A poet crowned with laurels reclines partially, ready to sing his glory. On the side of Voluptuousness, a lush forest offers no passage behind a cascade of petals. On a table, two theatrical masks signify deceitful vanity, alongside a musical score, a tambourine, a violin, and playing cards — attributes of Scandal.
In the foreground, Hercules is in crisis. Carracci emphasizes the slight angular divergence between Virtue and Voluptuousness and intensifies the figures’ movement through contraposto, generating a dramatic tension far from a “peaceful inner retreat.” The asymmetrical triangle formed by the heads gains further vigor through the combination of sculptural modeling and forward positioning — the women’s feet nearly touching the lower frame — granting the canvas a relief effect unprecedented until then. A single, artificial light source dramatizes the entire scene.
HERCULESBETWEEN VICEAND VIRTUE
Hercules emerges as the champion of self-mastery, becoming heroic precisely in the tragic space Carracci constructs for him. The rich background takes on metaphorical form: the path of Virtue is the steepest, a dead tree stump signaling the barrenness of moral guidance. A poet crowned with laurels reclines partially, ready to sing his glory. On the side of Voluptuousness, a lush forest offers no passage behind a cascade of petals. On a table, two theatrical masks signify deceitful vanity, alongside a musical score, a tambourine, a violin, and playing cards — attributes of Scandal.
In the foreground, Hercules is in crisis. Carracci emphasizes the slight angular divergence between Virtue and Voluptuousness and intensifies the figures’ movement through contraposto, generating a dramatic tension far from a “peaceful inner retreat.” The asymmetrical triangle formed by the heads gains further vigor through the combination of sculptural modeling and forward positioning — the women’s feet nearly touching the lower frame — granting the canvas a relief effect unprecedented until then. A single, artificial light source dramatizes the entire scene.
Hercules emerges as the champion of self-mastery, becoming heroic precisely in the tragic space Carracci constructs for him. The rich background takes on metaphorical form: the path of Virtue is the steepest, a dead tree stump signaling the barrenness of moral guidance. A poet crowned with laurels reclines partially, ready to sing his glory. On the side of Voluptuousness, a lush forest offers no passage behind a cascade of petals. On a table, two theatrical masks signify deceitful vanity, alongside a musical score, a tambourine, a violin, and playing cards — attributes of Scandal.
In the foreground, Hercules is in crisis. Carracci emphasizes the slight angular divergence between Virtue and Voluptuousness and intensifies the figures’ movement through contraposto, generating a dramatic tension far from a “peaceful inner retreat.” The asymmetrical triangle formed by the heads gains further vigor through the combination of sculptural modeling and forward positioning — the women’s feet nearly touching the lower frame — granting the canvas a relief effect unprecedented until then. A single, artificial light source dramatizes the entire scene.
(1) Hercules between Vice and Virtue or The Choice of Hercules, Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), 1596, oil on canvas, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
(2) Vault of the Camerino of Hercules, Palazzo Farnese, Rome © Ch. Mantuano
The sovereign beauty of the composition is so central to representing the theme that Erwin Panofsky traces the depiction of the Choice of Hercules up to Carracci, highlighting its canonical formulation and strong influence on late Baroque and Classicism. In the sixteenth century, these explorations of the contrast between Lust and Poverty were playgrounds where modern subjectivity was invented. The task was to give radical embodiment and visibility to ethics, making Hercules’ physical strength the emblem of self-mastery. Neutrality was perceived as surrender or the defeat of spirit: heroes were expected, decisive gestures, and the courage of positioning, the only means to inhabit the world with grandeur. Today, we navigate mired in paralyzing neutrality, often justified by a truncated reading of deconstruction. It is here that Carracci asserts his modern relevance. Without moralizing, refusing to reduce positioning to mere “correctness,” he offers a pure event: Hercules is about to break with indecision. The imminence of choice, present in the scene’s overall tension, constitutes the work’s enduring fascination.
(1) Raphael, The Dream of the Knight, 1503–1504, tempera on wood, 17.8 × 17.6 cm, National Gallery, London
(2) Nicolas Poussin, The Choice of Hercules, 1636–1637, oil on canvas, 88.3 × 71.8 cm, The Palladian Villa, Stourhead House, Wiltshire
It is within this tension that the ethical core of Derridean deconstruction is played out. To deconstruct is to reject ossified binaries — those old pairs of Good/Evil or Virtue/Vice offered to us ad nauseam — in order to probe what hides in the shadow cast by decision. Deconstruction is an infinite responsibility toward the Other. It forbids the artist any rest, compelling them to ensure, constantly, that their form does not collapse into deceit, decoration, or ready-made thought. To deconstruct The Choice of Hercules is therefore not to claim the path does not exist, but to reveal how solitary, arduous, and crucial the act of positioning oneself truly is. Carracci imbues Virtue with a metaphysical urgency. To draw inspiration from him today is to recognize creation as an act of resistance against global insignificance. The labor of the creative process, the obsession with form, the total investment: these are the very conditions of a radical ethics.
It is within this tension that the ethical core of Derridean deconstruction is played out. To deconstruct is to reject ossified binaries — those old pairs of Good/Evil or Virtue/Vice offered to us ad nauseam — in order to probe what hides in the shadow cast by decision. Deconstruction is an infinite responsibility toward the Other. It forbids the artist any rest, compelling them to ensure, constantly, that their form does not collapse into deceit, decoration, or ready-made thought. To deconstruct The Choice of Hercules is therefore not to claim the path does not exist, but to reveal how solitary, arduous, and crucial the act of positioning oneself truly is. Carracci imbues Virtue with a metaphysical urgency. To draw inspiration from him today is to recognize creation as an act of resistance against global insignificance. The labor of the creative process, the obsession with form, the total investment: these are the very conditions of a radical ethics.
© DORIAN LAFARGUE
