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''Achelous and Hercules'' is a 1947 mural painting by Thomas Hart Benton. It depicts a bluejeans-wearing Hercules wrestling with the horns of a bull, a shape the protean river god Achelous was able to assume. The myth was one of the explanations offered by Greco-Roman mythology for the origin of the cornucopia, a symbol of agricultural abundance. Benton sets the scene during harvest time in the U.S. Midwest. The mural was formerly displayed at a department store in Kansas City, Missouri, and is now in the collections of the Smithsonian. It was the first of Benton's paintings on a river-related theme.〔Justin Wolff, ''Thomas Hart Benton: A Life'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), p. 287.〕 ==Description== ''Achelous and Hercules'' is displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, on the second floor of the north wing.〔Smithsonian American Art Museum, ''Achelous and Hercules'' collections (information page ).〕 The painting was executed in egg tempera and oil on canvas, and affixed to a plywood panel measuring 62⅞ by 264⅛ inches (159.6 by 671 cm).〔〔Charles C. Eldredge, ''John Steuart Curry's ''Hoover and the Flood'': Painting and Modern History'' (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 22, where he rounds the dimensions to 63 by 262 inches.〕 Elizabeth Broun, director of the art museum, has described it as "raucous, gaudy, vibrant ... full of surging shapes and churning rhythms."〔 Elizabeth Broun, "Celebrating American Abundance," Director's Choice (tour. )〕 The central figure is the muscular, shirtless "Hercules" grappling with the horns of the bull. A second man, also wearing bluejeans and no shirt, stands by the bull's haunch and holds the end of a rope that swirls into another man's hand in the foreground, where the work of woodchopping has been interrupted. The bull's tail points into the surging, wavelike woods that rise out of the distance; a barn and silo emerge from the woods to the right. The undulating line of the rope and tail visually connect the woodlands and the timber produced from it. The right half of the panel is dominated by a giant bounty-producing cornucopia on which a dark-haired woman reclines, leaning on her elbow with her eyes closed. Above her, a standing blonde with a less voluptuous figure holds aloft a wind-blown piece of red drapery, extending her right hand to offer a laurel wreath in mid-air. This section of the mural brings together two communicative gestures: the presentation of the wreath, and the salutation of a silhouetted mule-mounted rider in the background who raises his hat in greeting or jubilation. A darker-skinned boy, dressed in overalls, sits next to the women on the cornucopia and holds a white cone. He is mirrored to the far left of the mural by an adult African-American who leans on a split-rail fence and watches the scene, head lifted in poised anticipation. Three sheaves rise up in the landscape behind him. A fourth sheaf appears in the foreground to the right, where a man kneels with a bushel of corn ears, ready to add to the harvest bounty. Finally, a paddle steamer navigates the calm river in the background, another example of how the river is tamed.〔The significance of the steamboat is noted in the Smithsonian's Educational Insights (feature ) on the mural.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Achelous and Hercules」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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