MERMAIDS IN THE IMAGINATION

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY AND MEDIEVAL EVOLUTION

Originally, sirens in Classical Greece were birds with the heads of women who lived on rocky islands where, with their songs, they caused sailors to shipwreck. Later, during the medieval period and thanks to the copyists of bestiaries, the concepts of nereids and undines were merged, and the fish tail was added as a symbol of lust and deception.

IN ART AND CINEMA

In art and cinema, women were depicted as a danger to men. Their modern symbolic representation is the femme fatale—women who lead men down the path of destruction. In the 21st century, thanks to feminist activism and new representations of these figures, they are now perceived as magical, festive beings connected to nature, showing us an alternative way of life.

* "Odysseus and the Sirens." Attic red-figure stamnos, ca. 480–470 BC. British Museum.

* "Ulysses and the Sirens" – John William Waterhouse (1891).

* "Ulysses and the Sirens" – Herbert James Draper (1909).

* "Mermaid and Handsome Men" – J.C. Leyendecker (1920). Originally published as a double-page centerfold advertisement in the prestigious American magazine The Saturday Evening Post, for the spring/summer fashion campaign of the menswear company House of Kuppenheimer (B. Kuppenheimer & Co.).

* "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" – Rob Marshall (2011).

* "Sirens", Joan Fontcuberta (2000). This artist created scientific evidence and even a falsely documented story about the discovery of a mermaid fossil, the "Hydropithecus" or "Sirena del Tormes" (Mermaid of the Tormes). It was disguised as a feature story for 'Scientific American' magazine, supposedly written by the French geologist and priest Jean Fontaine (a wordplay on the artist's real name). The artwork was exhibited in an actual natural history museum to confuse visitors. His surname, which is real, means "Covered Fountain" in Catalan (Fontcuberta).