Mermaids in Classical Art History
Mermaids are majestic, mysterious, and beautiful sea creatures that inhabit our oceans; for thousands of years, they’ve captivated the imagination. Centuries of intrigue have inspired many different adaptations of mermaids in pop culture and classical art. Contemporary mermaids are often depicted as female creatures longing to break free of their oceanic prisons. Movies such as Splash (1984), Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989), and Aquamarine (2006) all depict mermaid heroines desperately yearning for the human world, often because they’ve fallen in love with a human man. These films reinforce misogynistic cultural norms by praising women who abandon their own agency and change for a man they think they love. This somewhat problematic interpretation of mermaids, however iconic and endearing, is thankfully not the only representation of these creatures available.
Classical art mermaids, conversely, are depicted as seductive and villainous sirens, whose irresistible songs lure in unsuspecting fishermen and sailors, sending them to their watery graves. Artists have traditionally painted mermaids with long hair, fair skin, shimmering tails, and bare, topless torsos. In the paintings, the mermaids brush their curls alongside their sisterly companions, as they plot to drown their next male victim. Greek mythology inspired these depictions in classical art, where mermaids were conceptualized as mythological creatures called sirens. The role of these sirens was to lure men to their deaths with their sweet songs. In classical literature, mermaids make an appearance in Homer’s The Odyssey and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. These works challenge the 20th-century version of mermaids of our childhoods, who wish to be “part of our world.” To investigate these interpretations further, we can take a closer look at some famous paintings of mermaids from the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Sea of Maidens, 1886. Image courtesy of the De Morgan Collection.
An influential female artist who depicted mermaids was Evelyn De Morgan. She was an English artist who painted The Sea of Maidens, an oil on canvas completed in 1886, which was influenced by the stylings of Pre- Raphaelites. Her painting closely follows Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.
De Morgan painted the five sisters standing up for their younger sister, the titular little mermaid. The sisters have fair skin, and exposed breasts, and are holding hands in solidarity. Their tails ripple underneath the ocean’s surface. De Morgan never painted any of her subjects “in danger, trapped and waiting to be rescued.” Rather, she wanted the mermaids “to have ownership of themselves, not falling into archetypes of passivity.”
John Williams Waterhouse, an impressionist artist, established himself as the godfather of mermaid paintings at the turn of the twentieth century. He had a huge fascination with mermaids, so most of his classical artwork depicted their simultaneous capacity for beauty and deception. A Mermaid was more than likely inspired by the poem “The Mermaid” by Alfred Lord Tennyson in 1830. In this painting, a lone mermaid is seen sitting on a rock, brushing her hair, and looking out into the distance. In fact, some art critics believe the pearls inside the seashell beside the mermaid are “formed from the tears of dead sailors.” Thus, the painting of this beautiful mermaid brushing her hair manipulates the viewer with her secret deadliness. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1901 after Waterhouse was elected as an Academician.
A Mermaid, 1900. Image from Royal Academy of Arts.
The Siren, 1900. Image from Wikiart.
Another of his works, The Siren, depicts a siren in action. Seated on a rock, playing the lyre, she looks down at a man floundering in the ocean. Art historians note that “she is in the process of the transformation into a mermaid, the lower parts of the legs are turning into fish scales and fins.” The siren has auburn hair, which “became an attribute of the femme fatale in the 19 th century.” The fate of the lone and scared sailor in the ocean is unknown, but considering what sirens were known for, the sailor has every right to be afraid.
Ulysses and the Sirens, 1909. Image courtesy of MutualArt.
Herbert James Draper, an English painter who painted during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, took inspiration from Waterhouse’s work when creating Ulysses and the Sirens. The painting, completed in 1909, depicts the iconic scene from Homer’s The Odyssey. The painting portrays “a boat full of muscly sailors apparently terrified by three nude girls. As they climb aboard, an act of assertive sexuality, the sirens change into women.” A woman in the ocean still has a mermaid’s tail, and another, who’s climbing into the boat, has human legs. The women are fair-skinned and t fully nude. Draper has sexualized the women. According to the Victorian Web, “The theme of manly- self-control, emphasized by the brawny physiques and steely expressions of the crew, is played off against the idea of female sexual danger epitomized by the pale glistening bodies of the agile girls who clings seductively to the side of the boat.” The audience of this painting is clearly male, exemplifying hyper-masculine norms of self-control, and casting women as sexual temptresses.
The Villages of the Mermaids, 1942. Image courtesy of WNYC New York Public Radio.
Paul Delvaux, a surrealist artist from Belgium, was known for painting dreamlike sequences. The Villages of the Mermaids, completed in 1942, is confusing at first glance. The scene portrays a group of women donned in floor-length dresses, sitting down outside a building. The women sit in a row that extends out into the ocean in the background. A man dressed in black is seen walking away from the woman towards the ocean. On the beach lies a group of nude mermaids. To help understand this surrealist painting, consider the following analysis: “ To him (Delvaux), maybe they aren’t just the same dull person but extraordinary in some way, like one imagines a mermaid to be.” Unlike traditional sirens, the women aren’t seducing anyone, nor are they painted as stereotypically beautiful and seductive creatures. Rather, it “seems somewhat dreary and cold using words such as ‘gray’ and ‘dusky.’” During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Evelyn De Morgan, John William Waterhouse, Paul Delaux, and Herbert James Draper painted mermaids as mysterious and villainous sirens. The artists were inspired by Greek mythology such as Homer’s The Odyssey and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. However, the interpretation in classical art is by far different from contemporary mermaids shown in Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989). The difference between classical art versus contemporary movies is how these historical beings had their whole image reimagined. Disney had completely changed the ending for The Little Mermaid from its original story. Instead of turning into seafoam, Ariel, who desires to be “part of our world,” tosses aside her life under the sea and marries Prince Eric. Little does the audience from the 20th century, who’ve grown up with Ariel, realize classical art has depicted mermaids as villainous sirens who lured men to their deaths with their song.
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Acrylic paintings portraying mythical mermaids
The Mermaid Paintings Art Gallery. Featuring Realistic Mermaid Paintings & Pictures of Classical, Celtic, & Victorian Mermaids & Mermen – Mermaid Art created in a style inspired by Classic Illustrators by Contemporary American Artist & Photographer Howard David Johnson. Welcome lovers of Mermaid paintings & Mermaid art for all ages.
Mermaids & Mermen: Contemporary Mythical Art
A brief introduction to Western merman and mermaid folklore and mythology with a gallery featuring new paintings, drawings and pictures in traditional oils, acrylics, prismacolors pencils and cutting edge 2D and 3D digital media in the style of the classic illustrators!
“The Ascension” MMXII Oil on Canvas
“Mermaid searching a galleon” MMXIX Mixed Media
MERMAIDS AND MERMEN; Origins of Mermaid folklore and an Art Gallery of Realistic Mermaid Paintings & Pictures and a brief definition and cultural history of Mermaids.
General Admission Mermaid Art Gallery
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MERMAIDS and MERMEN
Mermaids are mythical and legendary sea-dwelling creatures of European & Asian folklore, resembling a woman, with a human torso, but having a fishtail or tails instead of legs. Mermen are also heard of, but have a secondary role in the lore of the sea. Other similar water spirits include nymphs, dryads, oceanids, hamadryads, naiads, nerieds, oreads, and undines.
Merbabies” MMXI Mixed Media
M ermaids are supposed to be able to lure imaginative, amorous men to destruction by enticing them into the depths of the sea; and, as a correlative, they are sometimes represented as securing their own destruction by quitting the sea, through marriage with a human husband. By this means they magically obtain temporarily a complete human form and soul, but always end in disaster to one or both of the sacrilegious pair.
“Mermaid Chorale” MMXV Mixed Media
Mermaids and Mermen; Oannes or Hea, the fish god; The folkloric origins of the mermaid may go back to the semifish gods of ancient religions, such as the Philistine Dagon [below] and the Oannes of the Chaldaeo-Babylonian religion and the popular mythologies of the Greeks and Romans featured them prominently in the classic tales of the sea.
“Horror of DAGON” MMXVI Mixed Media
“The Sea Witch” MMXVI Mixed Media
“Queen of Atlantis” MMXVI Mixed Media
“A Terrifying Divination” MMXVI Mixed Media
These deities are identical with the Greek Nereus, who is also pictured with the upper half of the body quite human, while the lower half is that of a fish. Nereus is also often portrayed as entirely a man, one of many shape-shifters of myth and folklore. Poseidon , or Neptune, from Greek and Roman mythology pictured below in both his forms, is probably the most famous of all the world’s sea deities.
O annes, who is said to have brought civilization to Babylonia, is sometimes figured as quite human, but dressed in the fish skins, according to berosus, and is represented as such in an image found at Nimrud by Layard. Many forms of mermaids and mermen may be found among these deities of the most ancient civilizations, and they also appear in early Celtic and Germanic (Teutonic ) mythology.
S imilar mermaid and merman like figures, occur again and again in ancient, medieval, and later art and folklore. This curious belief may be simply explained away as a personifying of the power of the sea. Or again, the accounts of seals and other marine animals may have originated an idea that the sea contains many half-human creatures. There remains the euhemeristic solution, attributing the origin of the gods to the deification of historical heroes or real persons and events.
Many stories of mermaids and sea-men resolve themselves into descriptions of a race like the Eskimos, who, when in their skin kayaks appeared from a distance to early voyagers like mermaids and mermen, with their upper torso well above the water. . It has also been suggested by some scientists that such marine animals as the dugong or the closely related manatee may, at a distance bear enough resemblance to a human female to have given vigor to the mermaid legend.
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INDEX of GALLERIES ~ LINKS to LARGER ART
The Realistic and Fantastic Art Galleries of Contemporary American Illustrator Howard David Johnson
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All these pieces of art and the text are legally copyrighted and were registered with the U.S. Library of Congress Office of Copyright by the author, Howard David Johnson All rights reserved worldwide. Permission for many academic or non-commercial uses is freely and legally available by simply contacting the author via e-mail or visiting www.howarddavidjohnson.com/permission.htm
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MANY PIECES OF ORIGINAL ART ON PAPER LIKE THESE ARE AVAILABLE:
Many pieces are currently available, mostly 11×14-13×16 inch Prismacolor Paintings (like Helen of Troy) and pencil portraits (like Arriba #2) followed in number by Acrylic, Prismacolor and pastel mixed media all on #400 Strathmore Bristol Board ranging from $700.00-$1400. 00 USD and Oil Paintings on canvas ranging from $1999.00 – 10,000.00 USD. Pieces that have never been rendered in oil can be commissioned in 16×20 inch size on canvas for 50% down and delivered in under 90 days with signed certificates of authenticity aka legal documents pledging never to render it in that size and media again to ensure premium collectability and investment potential.
David can also do a completely new picture designed in digital media (for more on this visit his digital media page) and when we approve the photo-montage, he uses it as reference to render it in oil on canvas. No surprises. Existing Artwork is shipped very well protected and go out to you immediately via Fed Ex or USPS Express mail upon receipt of payment at our expense. All new creations cost a bit more depending on what is involved. All new creations and rendering photo montages into art on paper are a LOT of fun with e-mail attachments and digital cameras.
ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS ON CANVAS LIKE THIS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE:
Almost all of Johnson’s Mixed Media creations (above left) displayed in this site are available to be rendered in oil on canvas like the 20×16 oil on canvas Faerie Guardians 2006 (above right). Each design will only be rendered in oil once at this size and can be delivered in as little as 90 days. Sadly, much of the subtlety, vibrance, lustre and impact of an original oil painting is lost when it is scanned and imported to digital media or even printed by a master printer. Nothing can compare to an original oil painting viewed in person in my opinion but the other painting media definitely look good in print and have their charms and distinct advantages as well.
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Thank you for Visiting. Your business, letters, & links are always welcome.
Howard David Johnson works in a wide variety of media * Oil paintings * Acrylic Paintings * Prismacolor Paintings * Drawings * Chalk & Oil Pastel Paintings * Photography * and last but not least: Digital Artistry & Mixed Media * Because of the use of photography in everything he does, even Johnson’s all-oil paintings can be termed mixed media.*
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This Gallery is lovingly dedicated to the Victorian Illustrators and Mermaid Artists who inspired me.
