{"id":829,"date":"2020-08-05T15:16:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T15:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/?p=829"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:30:11","slug":"heracleslaborssuite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/2020\/08\/05\/heracleslaborssuite\/","title":{"rendered":"HeraclesLaborsSuite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perham Wilhelm Nahl, \u201cThe Thirteenth Labor of Hercules\u201d (1915), color offset lithograph (as booklet cover and broadside poster), advertisement for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held at San Francisco 20 Feb \u2013 1 Dec 1915. The original is now held in a private collection.<br \/>\n\u2014 OGCMA HeraclesLaborsSuite2.0001<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-833 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/panama_pacific_international_exposition_poster-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"1915 panama pacific international exposition poster\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Classical Sources:<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"http:\/\/ogcma.byu.edu\/HeraclesLaborsSuite1.0000_Reid.htm\">ogcma.byu.edu\/HeraclesLaborsSuite1.0000_Reid.htm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Heracles in classical mythology performed twelve canonical labors and many <em>parerga<\/em> (secondary accomplishments). Many <em>parerga<\/em> were of substantial importance, but still not typically canonized as The Twelve were. One such <em>parergon<\/em> was Heracles\u2019 treatment of the Straits of Gibralter, known anciently as The Pillars of Heracles.<\/p>\n<p>This act was performed by the hero in conjunction with the tenth labor, the theft of Geryon\u2019s cattle. On his way to Erytheia, Heracles set up two massive stone pillars at Calpe (Gibraltar, on Europe) and at Abyla (Ceuta, on Africa) and marked thereby the boundary between Mediterranean and Atlantic. The civilizing impulse could be seen to demarcate the Ocean\u2019s wild, unknown monstrosity from the domesticated safety inside the Mediterranean. Pindar (<em>Oly<\/em>. 3.43-45, <em>Nem<\/em>. 3.19-23, <em>Isth<\/em>. 4.11-13) considered the Pillars as a boundary beyond which human striving becomes especially perilous. Some tellings specifically clarify that Heracles more than only marked, but even created the strait by separating the geological landmasses.<\/p>\n<p>Nahl\u2019s adaptation of this moment in the Heracles myth injects (super-)Herculean magnitude into the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. That fair celebrated the creation of the Panama Canal and defined San Francisco as officially reborn after 1906\u2019s devastating earthquake. One of the \u201cSeven Wonders of the Modern World\u201d, the Canal opened in 1914 a safe and hugely abbreviated passage between Atlantic and Pacific through Central America. American enterprise accomplished the feat of international engineering begun nearly forty years earlier by the French. Nahl depicts the titanic accomplishment in his broadside illustration \u2014 a cruiser steaming through the canal toward the recognizable PPIE skyline of San Francisco is dwarfed by the enormous hulk of Heracles, who sunders the landmasses of North and South America. So miniscule is the ship that it looks like a hyphen Nahl\u2019s painting. The profile of the Herculean backside bears a conscious resemblance to the Pacific coastline from San Francisco (shoulderblade) to Chile (left heel). An engineer sees the canal as a feat of human persistence, while an artist sees an even greater force at work. Opening the Panama Canal is Heracles\u2019 \u201cThirteenth Labor\u201d [of twelve]. By such a measure, Nahl boldly asserts that the hero\u2019s culminating accomplishments, fetching the Apples of the Hesperides and escorting Cerberus to the world of the living, were not the end of his sanctifying career.<\/p>\n<p>Perlham Wilhelm Nahl (1869-1935) was a San Franciscan artist who worked with classical mythological adaptations \u2014 such as the Graces, Apollo and Daphne, perhaps Baucis and Philemon, and others \u2014 without always being beholden to the classical myth. No work by Nahl is listed in the printed <em>OGCMA<\/em>. Nor is Nahl treated in Oxford Art Online.<\/p>\n<p>A medallion was struck in 1979 to commemorate the \u00be-centennial of the Panama Canal\u2019s inception.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-831\" src=\"http:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/word-image.jpeg\" alt=\"A 1979 medallion coin after Nahl\u2019s \u201cThirteenth Labor\u201d, inscribed by Hyde\" width=\"850\" height=\"866\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/word-image.jpeg 850w, https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/word-image-294x300.jpeg 294w, https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/word-image-768x782.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/word-image-59x60.jpeg 59w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A 1979 medallion coin after Nahl\u2019s \u201cThirteenth Labor\u201d, inscribed by Hyde. \u2014 HeraclesLaborsSuite2.0002_NahlHyde<\/p>\n<p>Bibliography<\/p>\n<p>Nolte, Carl. \u201cPanama-Pacific fair changed San Francisco forever,\u201d <em>San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> 14 Feb 2015; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/news\/article\/Panama-Pacific-fair-changed-San-Francisco-forever-6080573.php\">https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/news\/article\/Panama-Pacific-fair-changed-San-Francisco-forever-6080573.php<\/a> (accessed 31 July 2020).<\/p>\n<p>University of California (System) Academic Senate. 1935. <em>University of California: In Memoriam, 1935<\/em>. Archived on <em>Calisphere <\/em>(calisphere.org; accessed 31 July 2020).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perham Wilhelm Nahl, \u201cThe Thirteenth Labor of Hercules\u201d (1915), color offset lithograph (as booklet cover and broadside poster), advertisement for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held at San Francisco 20 Feb \u2013 1 Dec 1915. The original is now held in a private collection. \u2014 OGCMA &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"modified_by":"odhwp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1511,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions\/1511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogcmaonline.byu.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}