Edition: U.S. / Global

WORKS IN PROGRESS; That Dammed Hercules By Bruce Weber

Published: November 5, 1989

PAINTED ON THE FACE OF THE Tignes Dam, which is 250 meters long and 180 meters high, the portrait of Hercules by Jean-Marie Pierret is likely the world's largest fresco. A Herculean project in itself, it's also a reasonably apt symbol for the Olympic Games, which will arrive nearby, in Albertville, France, in the winter of 1992. Lent to Pierret for use as a canvas by EDF, the national electric company, the dam, at the northern end of Lake Chevril, is about a 50-mile southeasterly meander down the Isere River from Albertville.

The fresco, recently completed, was painted by eight people - mountain climbers, according to Pierret - who worked from his mosaic-like design. He divided the face of the dam into some 260,000 individual squares, each measuring 20 centimeters on a side. Then, in a process similar to the Renaissance tradition of fresco painting - in which the artist customarily made a ''cartoon'' of the planned painting, with equivalent dimensions, then painted the work, piecemeal, according to the cartoon - Pierret provided his assistants with 100-square maps to work from. In a telephone interview, conducted in French, Pierret said the actual painting took about 60 days. There were some difficulties, depending on the complexity of color requirements, but overall, he said, ''it is a very simple method.''

Financing - about 3 million francs (approximately $480,000), according to Pierret - came from private corporations interested in boosting the Olympic effort of the region, which is in the Alps, near the Italian border. Pierret, a 41-year-old artist who specializes in wall paintings, might well acknowledge the suitability of Hercules as an Olympian figure. But the fresco was a personal project, he said, that came to be where it is ''par hasard.''

The Tignes Dam