The Lure of the Sirens: How the Shape of a City Became an Inspiration for the Arts

Words by Emilia Sogaard

Image, author’s own, November 2024.

Having recently watched Paolo Sorrentino’s film Parthenope, I became intrigued by the portrayal of a strong female lead who has a foreboding and powerful connection to water; a theme often explored throughout the visual arts. My aim is not to provide a film review, although I do strongly recommend watching Sorrentino’s Parthenope, but more to explore the fascination around the lure of the siren, which writers and artists have returned to time and time again, from Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid to Pre-Raphaelite paintings. 

The figure of Parthenope is inspired by Greek mythology with one myth suggesting that Parthenope tried to seduce Odysseus, but failing, she threw herself into the sea and her body formed the bay of Naples. There are countless other stories which have been combined with legends of the modern city, resulting in an ongoing body of literature and visual culture. Some say that the greatest musician in Greek mythology, Orpheus, dispelled the power of the sirens and thus they were thrown into the water and Parthenope’s body washed up onto the shore. While a myth from the 1800s suggests that Parthenope was a mermaid who was in love with Vesuvio, with jealous Zeus separating the lovers by making the latter into a volcano. Parthenope, heartbroken, killed herself and the waves dragged her to the shore, with her body forming the shape of the bay. 

 Naples, December 2024, author’s own image. 

These prevailing legends explore how the Neapolitan coastline acquired such a mythological name, which in the 21st century, the visual arts are still enthralled by. Sorrentino takes the mythical persona of Parthenope and reinvents her as an ambitious young girl living in Naples. Her life is simultaneously plagued and compelled by the power of her own beauty. In the opening scenes the protagonist is birthed into the sea and named Parthenope by her grandfather who, gazing out over the coastline, takes inspiration from the bay. Throughout the film, her life is disrupted by the power and fragility that beauty can cause to a soundtrack of the ripples of the waves. But in this storyline, it is not her death (spoiler alert!), but that of her brother which directs her life both within and ultimately away from the city. Sorrentino’s philosophical lines leave character’s questioning the possibility of being happy in the most beautiful place on earth. The plot combines themes of beauty, intelligence and personal suffering with a strong sense of place, suggesting these are the genetic make-up of a character named Parthenope. 

Sorrentino first teases the viewer with the idea of a water-based death in a swimming pool scene and then strongly alludes to a sea-fall suicide, suggesting that Parthenope’s beauty has the capacity to lure those who love her most intensely to their deaths in the very same water that she was birthed in. 

But what is it in this dangerous beauty that attracts artists, writers and painters alike, to the power of sirens? Greek history suggests that mermaids, or sirens, could have been originally found on ancient Greek tombs, depicted as half bird, half woman. With the music of these funerary divinities luring sailors to their own deaths. This idea of the siren is also visible in Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Particularly John William Waterhouse’s 1891 Ulysses and the Sirens, showing the sirens clearly in their half-bird, half-woman forms with their darkened wings foreshadowing the fate of the sailors.

Evelyn De Morgan, Evening Star Over the Sea, probably 1910 - 1914, oil on canvas, De Morgan Collection.

This spiritual connection between the sea and female figures is further depicted by Evelyn de Morgan. Her mermaids, sirens and harpies offer a stark contrast to the male Pre-Raphaelite works. The luminous colours suggest a sense of transience and lack of complete comprehension adding to the mystery of the powerful sirens. This impermanence is paired with a strong sense of self as De Morgan’s figures remain clearly outlined in their hazy seascapes, carrying on this mythological connection of beautiful feminine figures and the sea. Similarly, in the film, Parthenope’s decisions reflect this strong sense of self-knowing yet show the fragility and the destructive capacity of beauty.