Ulysses and the Sirens, by Léon Belly, 1867, Musée de l’hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer © Bridgeman Images.

When I look at this picture, the immediate response is to look at Odysseus. This is because he is the only character with his physique showing, and the only one in such a pop of color. The rest of the picture, as what would be assumed being in the middle of a big body of water, is quite dark and gloomy. The sirens are also in different colors than the rest of the characters in the photo (the crew members), but still in a darker color than Odysseus to show that they are the guest stars in the picture but still not as important as Odysseus. Purple, as a color which shows royalty, luxury and ambition which shows the intentions of the Sirens and how they act. However it is also to be noted that it is not as bright as Odysseus, still drawing the eyes to him first. This picture also has the sirens using good posture, which shows their confidence that they have in themselves. Other small observations include good dimension that was crafted by the artist, one of Odysseus’ crew members, swimming in the water over to the sirens trying to get their attention, which even though isn’t written in the story, is realistic to have happened given the fact that the only thing between them and a hypnotizing ‘monster’ was a piece of wax. In terms of gender in this picture, there are only two women that are placed lower down in the photo than even the crew members, which could have been completely accidental but still worked out well for how standards worked back then. Noticing how many oars there are in the boat, there is clearly a lot of teamwork going on between the crew members throughout this journey which brings note to also the obedience of Odysseus the crew members had. Analyzing facial expression, there isn’t much opportunity to analyze this given the fact that it is blurry to tell or the heads are turned away. I feel it needs to be said that I would have no understanding of what this picture means if I didn’t read book 12 of the Odyssey. 

I chose this image because I thought that it currently represented this part of the book. It is overall correct in terms of the components that are in it. This includes Odysseus’ men on the ship, the Sirens calling to Odysseus, Odysseus looking, if anything, like he wants to go with the Sirens because he was being hypnotized. With that being said, there are some portions of the picture that I would disagree with in terms of it being realistic. One of those includes how Odysseus only has one rope around his waist because it was supposed to hold him back from escaping using all of his strength. I think the rope was only wrapped around him one time in the picture to show off his six-pack and his masculinity. It also shows more weakness to be wrapped up tightly, so I can understand why he was presented that way, even if it was done unconsciously by the artist. I also am not sure about the interpretation that there are USA decorations on the side of their ship. However, on the other hand, that may have been an off the book fun addition from the artist and not a misinterpretation of the text. The crew keeping themselves busy is a pretty good interpretation of what they were doing at this moment. Although it’s not explicitly said what the crew members were doing when they were passing the island of the sirens in the book, except for the fact that they were wearing earplugs, it is fair to think that they were doing what they could to not look over at the hypnotizing sirens. My personal research of the story lets me know that in this photo, Odysseus went off of Cylis’ advice, giving ear wax to his men and the decision he made to not have earwax and to be tied up by his crew-mates to keep him from succumbing to the sirens’ music. He did this out of curiosity of what that would be like, which was done to show him off as the man of no fear who looks for adventure and wants new experiences. In my research I also learned that it was nothing but the cremates’ obedience that kept Odysseus away from the Sirens’ murderous intentions, given the fact that Odysseus tried to escape from the ropes his crew-mates tied him in to get closer to the sirens, and the crew-mates ties the ropes tighter. if they wouldn’t have done that, Odysseus would’ve gotten free and probably would’ve died. Which shows the character of the crew-mates, because even though they aren’t obedient in every circumstance they do show a good amount of care for Odysseus.

Comparing my research about the context of this picture and the chapter of this story and the picture, there are a few differences. These include the details on the side of the boat that were not described in the story, which to be fair, not much is said about the clothing these people are wearing either so that is also up to interpretation. If anything, I disagree with the artist in having a crew-mate overboard swimming toward the sirens because that is not said in the text and seems like too big of a detail to simply add without actually reading it in the text. One more comparison I will make is that the crew-mates who are close to Odysseus are pulling the rope tighter just as it is wiremen in the story, and it is really cool to see different parts of this scene and book come to life in a way that I can see in 3D with my own eyes. This image focuses on color to show power and frankly who the main focus of the picture is because it is one of the easiest ways of communicating who those people are. The first time I looked at this picture, after I had read this book 2 times, was that Odysseus was the main focus and always should be and that the sirens were calling to Odysseus. Consumers of this picture could easily miss the fact that the crew-members are using all of their strength to hold back Odysseus from the sirens, and that is given that Odysseus isn’t even using all of his strength yet based on his body-language. It also could take more than 5 minutes of looking at this picture to see the details on the ship and notice the crew-member who is swimming toward the sirens. Along with that, how big the ship is and how much detail went into the painting of Odysseus’ outfit and so on. People are distracted with the brightness of Odysseus’ outfit and the sirens calling to him and what his body-language is doing to look at anything else quite yet. I think the artist chose to put him up on a pedestal compared to the other characters because that is the way that things work in the story and therefore in this book as well. I would love to see a version of this picture which puts the modern tang on it and makes assumptions about what Odysseus ‘the leading character who makes no mistakes’ would do in this situation, and also what the crew would be doing in this situation.