The Sirens and Ulysses "The Sirens and Ulysses" currently hangs in Gallery Three. 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 decaying corpses.
The Sirens and Ulysses large paintings, and encouraged Etty to make such works. In 1834, he suggested the theme of Ulysses ("Odysseus" in the original Greek) encountering the Sirens, a scene from the "Odyssey" in which a ship's crew sails past the island home of the Sirens. The Sirens were famous for the beauty of their singing, which would lure sailors to their deaths. Ulysses wanted to hear their song, so had his crew lash him to the ship's mast under strict orders not to untie him, after which they blocked their ears until they were safely out of range of the island. The