Artist: John William Waterhouse (English, 1849-1917)
Date: c. 1900
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Private Collection
Description
The painting depicts a siren sitting at the edge of a cliff, lyre in hand, staring down at a shipwrecked sailor floating in water, who in turn is staring up at her.
‘Oh happy seafarers are ye And surely all your ills are past, And toil upon the land and sea, Since ye are brought to us at last; But now, but now, when ye have lain Asleep with us a little while Beneath the washing of the main, How calm shall be your waking smile!’
William Morris, Life and Death of Jason, 1867
In the aftermath of a shipwreck, an exhausted survivor struggles towards the safety of the shore. He clings to an algae-clad rock without the strength to pull himself from the dark waters that surge and ebb around him. The treacherous currents and undertows threaten to pull him under the waves and almost all his strength is gone. At this moment of crisis, he is surprised by the beautiful vision of a young girl sitting on the rock above him with pearly-white skin and with lips parted in song. Her passive expression is enigmatic and whether she will help him or harm him we cannot know but we can be sure that he is spellbound by her pale beauty and magic song. Her abalone-shell harp and pearl hair decoration identify her as one of the sirens – ancient beguiling enchantresses of the ocean who lured mariners to their doom with their seductive song. The lower part of her legs, splashed by the spray of the sea, are magically transformed into the glistening fish scales and fins of a mermaid. Her hair is the auburn hue that in the nineteenth century became a potent symbol of the femme fatale. But she is not the vicious predatory sea-creature painted in continental Europe by the likes of Arnold Bocklin, Franz von Stuck or Gustave Moreau. She appears innocent of the harm her singing has caused and continues to pluck at the strings of her harp and gaze down at the drowning sailor below, as curious of him as he is of her.
