Women and Water I - Hylas and the Nymphs

Hylas is a figure from Greek mythology and mentioned in the works of Ovid, Theocritus and Gaius Valerius Flaccus. In some sources, Hylas' father is thought to be King Theiodamas of the Dryopians, other sources state that Hylas was the son of Hercules and the nymph Melite.

Hylas was one of the Argonauts, travelling with Hercules in search of the Golden Fleece. While the Argo anchored at Cios, Hylas was sent ashore to search for water. When he discovered the spring of Pegae, the nymphs of the place, among them Dryope, fell in love with him and kidnapped him. Apollonios Rhodios, in his epic poem Argonautica, states that Hylas vanished without a trace. While Hercules searched for him, Hylas was never found. Flaccus' poem Argonautica explains that Hylas had fallen in love with these naiads, the water-nymphs, and remained with them in their watery abode.

This subject inspired Victorian painter John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917) to his superb painting Hylas and the Nymphs from 1896, now at the Manchester Art Gallery in the UK.

While the story of Hylas and the nymphs was not a regular subject in painting or the visual arts, Hylas, however, was mentioned in several works of literature in the English language. Hylas was a source of inspiration for both Edmund Spenser in his The Fairie Queene from 1596 and Christopher Marlowe in Edward II from 1594 as well as for Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray from 1890.

Amazingly, this masterpiece of Waterhouse's oeuvre has experienced great popularity with artists, photographers and directors of our age. Reference to Hylas and the Nymphs is evident in numberless examples of popular culture.

One of these references is clearly the scene of the mermaids luring the pirates in Rob Marshall's “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” from 2011:

Both the imagery and the luring enchantment of the seductresses correspond with Waterhouse’s work. This shot from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" also conveys this notion:

Apparently, the idea of the femme fatale, which fascinated painters, sculptors and writers in the 19th and early 20th century holds the same attraction to today’s artists, photographers and directors.

However, the most obvious reference of John William Waterhouse's Hylas and the Nymphs can be found in the 1994 movie "Sirens", directed by John Duigan, starring Hugh Grant, Sam Neill and Elle Macpherson. "Sirens" is a movie about an Anglican priest and his wife visiting a notorious artist about a blasphemous painting. At the artist's compound, the two meet his models, Elle Macpherson, Kate Fisher and Portia de Rossi. In the course of the movie, these three women become personifications of Waterhouse's nymphs.

The scene of the painter's models bathing in the pond and the blind man drinking from the water is an almost one-to-one quotation of Waterhouse, down to the hairdo, the lily pond and the posture of the four:

For more information on the movie see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirens_(film)