Scroll through the gallery at your leisure. All the images you will come across have been placed chronologically in their representations. Accompanying the art works is information on the artist, the work itself or just on where it comes from and the story behind it. Mermaids and merfolk in general have captured the imagination of the artist over the centuries and as the technology and mediums of art have grown in numbers so too has the places you will find a mermaid or merfolk. For example, included in this gallery is a still from the now very popular TV series THE X FILES. Some of the images you may have already come across but here you will find out more . . .
- Phoenecian relief from the Palace of Sargon c. 700BC, the merman figure can be seen in the top left corner, look closely it's very old!
- this vase, dated c. 540 BC shows the typical floral patern and the triton motif. It was believed to have been mad by an immigrant Ionian in Etruria. A detail can be seen below.
A small dish I bought at a market showing the triton motif still used in souveniers. Written on the bottom is 'Hand made in Greece'. The detail is below.
A still from a black and white silent film of Odysseus' voyages.
Another still from the same movie.
- A black and white floor mosaic, and detail below, from the Baths of Neptune in Ostia, dated c. 140 AD. An example of the Roman triton.
- I came accross this image of Celtic mermaids, can anybody tell me more?
- typical bestiary images, above a seal/like mermaid, left a siren/mermaid, and below two tritons.
- a detail of an Icelandic manuscript called 'The Flateyjarbok', a part of the Poetic Edda.
- a Spanish capital from San Martin, Fuentiduena, late XII century.
- Sandro Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' c. 1482, the ideology of a maiden being born from the sea contributed to the birth of the mermaid.
- Arthur Rackham, who illustrated many famous children's books during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
- a beautiful marble sculpture of Aino from the Kalevala by Johannes Takanen, 1886.
- the stern of the three-decked SOLEIL ROYALE the pride of the fleet of Louis XIV.
- a detail of the boader showing a two-finned merman.
- The Mermaid, a 32 gun frigate launched in Sheerness in 1784. It was the mermaid that brought to Australia the Revrand Pierce Gilliard Smith in 1855, the new rector of St John's church in Canberra.
- the first of three paintings by Arnold Bocklin, "Playing in the waves", 1880-3.
- Bocklin's "Games of Naiads", 1886. It's a pity about the image quality, but one can still see the incredible beauty of this painting.
- Bocklin's "Cam Sea", 1886-7 showing a very beautiful mermaid.
- the left panel of Akseli Gallen-Kallela's "Ano Myth", 1891. Aino has just met the obnoxious man.
- here in the centre panel she is running from him into the waters.
- the final panel where she hears the water maidens and decides to join them.
- John William Waterhouse's famous painting of "Resonance", the serene mermaid combing her hair.
- the Feegee mermaid of P. T. Barnum's freakshows, this is a still from the X-Files of this famous fraud.
- the statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, of Hans Andersen fame.
- one of Rose O'Neill's drawings of "Kewpies", the artist was indeed the inventor of the kewpie doll, the first being manufactured in 1912
- detail of "Kewpies".
- detail of "Kewpies".
- the artist Paul Delvaux's wonderfully haunting figures in "Nymphs Bathing, 1938.
- his even more haunting painting of "Village of the Mermaids". His works were meant to chalenge the viewer and in this particular painting the viewer automatically looks for the mermaids tail, and presume their village would be under the sea.
- totally confusing people, the reversal of Rene Magritte's "Song of Love", 1948, mermaids are well known. He took the mythological beauty and reversed it and thus setting a new meaning to accepted mythology.
- the 1950's artist Andrew Loomis has returned to the traditional mermaid in his painting simply titled "A Mermaid"
- greeting cards are a great way to find new mythological artists such as James C. Christensen and his work "Mermaids", 1986.
- another greeting card discovered artist is James Gurney and his "Ride to Atlantis", 1986.
- "The Mermaid" by Howard Pyle is wonderfully atmospheric returning again to the traditional myth, she is embrassing a human man.
- a lovely example of the beauty, and grace of the mermaid in her watery element, by Robert Ingpen, 1986.
- the first Little Mermaid animated film was by a European company, the ending is true to the Andersen tradition, this is a still of Marina, the Little Mermaid, and her statue of a human boy, 1970's.
- an absolutely gorgeous pencil drawing of the Disney's Little Mermaid, 1992
- just a small example of the mermaid still beling used in comic books today. This is from a Japanese comic book. Any information on Lori Lomaris, the mermaid one time girlfriend of Superman, according to Trivial Pursuit, would be appreciated.
- Stephen Mackey's romantic mermaids are very characteric as one can see in this image from 1994.
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