The Sirens and Ulysses
The Sirens and Ulysses is a large oil painting on canvas by the English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1837. It depicts the scene from Homer's Odyssey in which Ulysses (Odysseus) resists the bewitching song of the sirens by having his ship's crew tie him up, while they are ordered to block their own ears to prevent themselves from hearing the song. While traditionally the sirens had been depicted as human–animal chimeras, Etty portrayed them as naked young women, on an island strewn with corpses in varying states of decay. The painting divided opinion at the time of its first exhibition, with some critics greatly admiring it while others derided it as tasteless and unpleasant. Possibly owing to its unusually large size, 442.5 by 297 cm (14 ft 6.2 in by 9 ft 8.9 in), the work initially failed to sell, and was bought later that year at a bargain price by the Manchester merchant Daniel Grant.