Ulysses and the Sirens

This scene captures one of the most famous moments from Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses, the Greek hero, has been warned that the Sirens sing a song so beautiful that sailors steer their ships onto the rocks to reach them. Wanting to hear the song without dying for it, he orders his crew to plug their ears with wax and tie him tightly to the mast. Waterhouse painted him standing bound to the pole, straining while his men row on with their heads down, focused only on their oars. The clever twist is how the artist imagined the Sirens themselves. Instead of the usual beautiful women, he gave them the bodies of birds with human faces, based on ancient Greek pottery he had studied. They swarm the ship like a flock of predatory birds, which makes the danger feel much more real and strange.

John William Waterhouse was a British painter working around 1891, when this picture was made. He is often linked with the Pre-Raphaelites, artists who loved myths, legends, and rich storytelling detail. The painting rewards a look at the small things, like the red sail whipping in the wind, the water breaking against the hull, and the tense faces of the crew. It is a dramatic retelling of an old story, and while the bird-women may look a little odd to modern eyes, that oddness is exactly what Waterhouse was after.