Ulysses and the Sirens

At the turn of the century, Thomas Moran executed a series of works inspired by heroic scenes from the literary classic The Odyssey by Homer. Ulysses and the Sirens, part of this series, reveals the artist's ambitious talent for creating a powerful landscape of mythic proportions. Ulysses and the Sirens portrays the scene of The Odyssey when the epic hero's ship passes the rocks of the Sirens. The particular topography described in this passage afforded Moran the perfect opportunity to demonstrate his unparalleled skill in creating majestic rock formations and illusory landscapes bathed in ethereal light. The following passage from The Odyssey, translated in 1900, would have provided key visual elements from which Moran could work to create the present picture: "First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If anyone unwarily draws into too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses your are to take; I will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost in a dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never clear not even in summer and early autumn." (Homer, The Odyssey, trans. by S. Butler, 1900, reprint 1993, New York, pp. 148-149)

This painting will be included in Stephen L. Good's and Phyllis Braff's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.