Odysseus and the Sirens

Odysseus meets the sirens in the 12th book of Homer's epic poem Odysseus. When he parts with Circe, she warns him about the dangers on his way home. Sirens are the first on the list. Their seductive song lures sailors to carelessly approach them and break the ships on the rocks. Drowning of the crew usually follows.

But Circe instructed Odysseus to plug the ears of everybody on the ship with beeswax, making them effectively deaf and safe from the sirens' spell. Odysseus is too curious to miss the seductive song and wants to hear it anyway. So he orders the crew to plug their ear but not his. Instead, he is bound to the mast, so he can listen to the magical songs without danger to jump in the sea.

We learn a lot about Odysseus' character from his encounter with Sirens. He is curious and smart, what we already know from before. He also has double standards, expecting from his wife to indefinitely faithfully waiting for him not even knowing if he is still alive and if he will ever come back while he is sleeping around in the meantime (we are talking about years and years). We also see he is still not willing to listen to good advice.

Despite all his experience Odysseus still wants to risk just for the mere excitement of an adventure. He is risking his life and life of his people but it somehow looks gods love his attitude and protect him when he needs their help.

The song of the Sirens is really so seductive he is willing to jump right among the Sirens, but luckily his men don't follow his new orders when he insists to be unbound. The ship succeeded to pass the Sirens and continues to the next danger what is already a different story.

Paintings

Painters enjoyed portraying the scene with Odysseus on the ship passing the Sirens. Well, other artists love it as well. There is at least 2500 years old vase in the British Museum with the same scene portrayed on the stamnos (sort of pottery), but we'll focus on the paintings and illustrations only.

Odysseus and the Sirens, an oil painting by John William Waterhouse was exhibited for the first time at London's Royal Academy in 1891. It was only his second work exhibited in this prestigious place and earned lots of praise from the critics. As we can see, Waterhouse stayed faithful to the Greek mythological depiction of Sirens and presented them with birds' bodies and beautiful women's heads. It is believed Waterhouse found inspiration for their look in the picture on the antique vase what somehow surprised the audience who was already accustomed to the similarity of sirens with mermaids at other painters of the time.

The Sirens and Ulysses by William Etty (1787–1849) is another famous oil painting on the same subject. In this case, the artist didn't portray the Sirens as the part-human-part-animal creatures. Instead, he decided to show them as nude ladies tempting the passing mariners to join them on the coast. Their nudity is only part of the controversy surrounding this artwork. Another part lays in the corpses, lying on the beach. It's believed Etty used only one model in three poses for the Sirens and real corpses to portray their victims. Dimensions of the painting (four and a half meters by three meters) caused additional problems and the painting was very hard to sell. There is also a problem with the experimental technique of painting which caused very fast decay of the picture. For this reason, it was closed in archives for a century and a half before it was restored in 2010. Today it's displayed in Manchester Art Gallery.

We don't know when exactly Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl (1860-1933) painted Irrfahrt des Odysseus (Odysseus Wandering) with the scene of transcendent Sirens floating around the ship with Odysseus and his men. Interestingly, he chooses such an approach, denying the seductive part of their characters because he was an artist who was well-known by very direct displaying of female nudity. It's oil on the canvass of relatively small dimensions (55 centimeters by 35 centimeters) and there is a possibility it's not Hiremy-Hirschl's work at all.

Odysseus and Sirens by Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711) is another famous oil painting on the same subject. Original can be seen in Museum Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf but you can get a decent replica hand-painted by an experienced painter in the same technique for several hundred dollars depending on the size and frame you choose. Gerard de Lairesse was a Dutch painter from the so-called Golden Age and he portrayed several scenes from Odysseus in his lifetime. Originals belong to some of the most prestigious museums in the world today. Gerard de Lairesse was also an accomplished and influential art theorist who focused his work on lecturing in later years when he lost his sight. His other loves were music, poetry, and theatre.

Ulysses and the sirens by Annibale Carracci (1560–1609), an artist from Bologna, is the only fresco presented in this post. It can be seen in Palazzo Farnese, today's French Embassy in Rome, Italy. It's part of monumental work which includes scenes from the stories about Hercules and other parts of Greek mythology. There is also another scene from Ulysses - with a Circe. The whole project was ordered and supervised by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, who was a nephew of Pope Paul III. It took the artist and his workers more than a decade to finish it.

Sirenen mit Ulysses (Sirens with Ulysses) by Austrian painter Karl von Blaas (1815–1894) was made in 1882. It's another oil on canvas with meter by meter and a half dimensions. Today it's a part of a private collection in Vienna.

Ulysse et Les Sirenes (Ulysses and Sirens) is another gigantic oil on canvas with more than 360 cm of height and exactly 3 m width. Leon Belly (1827-1877) made it in 1867 and it was acquired at the Salon the same year. Today it's on display in Musee de l'hotel Sandelin (The Sandelin Hotel Museum) which is located at the very North of France in Saint-Omer. As we can see the artist decided to portray nude women instead of mythological creatures and their position is very suggestive. The harp, as the only sign of their musical skills, is definitely not in the major role in this case, so a superficial observer can easily miss it.

Oil on canvass by Marie Francois Firmin-Girard (1838-1921) on the other side puts music in the first plan. His Ulysses and the Sirens from 1868 puts the Sirens on the rock, trying to confuse the ship crew, but they are passing by and Odysseus is hardly visible. Dimensions of this picture are much more home-friendly by today's standard: just 21 centimeters by  30 centimeters.

Illustrations

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829) made this engraving titled Odysseus fahrt mit seinen Gefahrten an den Sirenen vorbei (Odysseus Sails with His Companions Past the Sirens) for the book Homer nach Antiken gezeichnet von Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (Göttingen, 1805). The original, based on antique intaglio, is located in Oldenburger Landesmuseum für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte (State Museum for Art and Cultural History in Oldenburg).

The illustration by John Flaxman (1755-1826) is titled The Sirens and is one of more than 50 illustrations in The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope and published by Ingram, Cooke & Co, London in 1853. Original as an engraving and etching on paper is part of the collection in Tate Gallery.

We conclude our journey through the world of illustrations on the theme of Ulysses and Sirens with another beautiful piece of art. Charles Robinson (1870-1837) made this picture for The adventures of Odysseus, retold in modern English by Sydney, Mayor, and Stawell. The Sirens, as the illustration is titled is the only color picture among 18 pictures in the book and was used as the frontispiece. He also made numerous decorative details in art nouveau style and the frame of the presented illustration is a beautiful example of his skill. The book was published by J. M. Dent in London and E. P. Dutton in New York.

To be continued...