Reading visual art: 146 Swimmers in narrative

Painters have often used collections of nude women in or near water to appeal to their male patrons, but relatively few have depicted people actually swimming. In this and tomorrow’s articles I examine paintings whose emphasis is on swimming, diving and the like, rather than the beauty of nudes.

The most prominent legend centred on swimming is that of the hapless lovers Hero and Leander. Legend tells that Leander, a young man living in Abydos on the south-eastern (Asia Minor) bank of the Hellespont, and Hero, a beautiful young woman living in Sestos on the north-western (European, Thracian Chersonese) bank, fell deeply in love.

But in fear of Leander’s parental disapproval, they had to meet in secret, so he took to swimming that hazardous mile each evening that he visited Hero, and later its return. Their relationship developed, and was consummated, and they appear to have established a reliable routine. Leander navigated his way across not using the stars, but by the light that Hero provided on top of the tower where she lived, in an ancient lighthouse.

Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919), Hero Holding the Beacon for Leander (c 1885), gouache on paper mounted on panel, 57.8 x 29.2 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Evelyn De Morgan’s Hero Holding the Beacon for Leander (c 1885) places Hero down on the shore, holding a small torch aloft, looking out for her lover as he makes his way through the choppy water. There is a red thread, wool perhaps, running from her clothing, under her left hand, probably a reference to the thread of life, or that of time, but there’s no sign of any swimmer.

One dark and stormy night, as Leander was midway in his crossing to Hero, her light was extinguished by the weather, and Leander drowned.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837), oil on canvas, 146 × 236 cm, Tate Britain, London. Wikimedia Commons.

JMW Turner’s The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) is a dramatic and complex work with elements of both the precursor to the climax, and the climax itself. Sestos is on the left, with a couple of towers visible on the coast, neither of which contains Hero’s light. Leander is seen swimming across the narrow strait (its width shown far smaller than in reality), from right to left, to join Hero. Behind him on the bank at Abydos are spirits emerging, indicating his imminent death.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), The Parting of Hero and Leander (detail) (1837), oil on canvas, 146 × 236 cm, Tate Britain, London. Wikimedia Commons.

Hero saw her lover’s lifeless body, so threw herself from the top of her tower to join her lover in death.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Hero and Leander (c 1604), oil on canvas, 95.9 × 128 cm, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.

Peter Paul Rubens’ youthful account in his Hero and Leander of about 1604 is big on storm and drama, but difficult to read. Leander’s body is being brought through the huge waves by a team of Naiads, as Hero, wearing a brilliant red gown, plunges to her death at the right.

Domenico Fetti (1589–1623), Hero Mourning the Dead Leander (1621-22), oil, 41 x 97 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons.

Domenico Fetti’s slightly later Hero Mourning the Dead Leander (1621-22) features curiously calm waters. A more modest group of Naiads in the centre are tending to Leander’s corpse, as a winged Cupid cries over them. At the right, Hero falls head-first from her tower to inevitable death. On the left, Fetti provides a couple of evil-looking sea monsters, and Venus making her way on her large clam shell.

Another less-known narrative involving swimmers is that of the Ship of Fools, drawn from a section in Plato’s Republic, where the ancient Greek philosopher uses an allegory to criticise systems of government based not on experts but on (a flawed) democracy.

Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Ship of Fools (fragment of left wing of The Wayfarer triptych) (1500-10), oil on oak panel, 58.1 x 32.8 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Hieronymus Bosch’s Ship of Fools, a fragment from a larger Wayfarer triptych painted in 1500-10, is actually a small boat, into which six men and two women are packed tight. Its mast is unrealistically high, bears no sail, and has a large branch lashed to the top of it, in which is Bosch’s signature owl. The occupants are engaged in drinking, eating what appear to be cherries from a small rectangular tabletop, and singing to the accompaniment of a lute being played by one of the women.

One man at the bow is vomiting overboard, near a large fish which is strung from the branch of a small tree. Another of the passengers holds a large spoon-like paddle, which would be of little or no use either for propulsion or steering. There are four additional characters, all men: two are swimming by the side of the boat, one, dressed as a fool, is perched high up forward in among the rigging, and the fourth has climbed a tree on the bank to try to cut down the carcass of a chicken from high up the mast. The vessel flies a long red pendant from high on its mast, with a gold crescent moon on it.

Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Ship of Fools (fragment of left wing of The Wayfarer triptych) (detail) (1500-10), oil on oak panel, 58.1 x 32.8 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

This Ship of Fools has been depicted only rarely, and in 1830-32, William Etty painted a large canvas that might at first appear to be drawn from the same allegory.

William Etty (1787–1849), Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm (1830-2), oil on canvas, 158.7 x 117.5 cm, The Tate Gallery, London (Presented by Robert Vernon 1847). Photographic Rights © Tate 2016, CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N00356

His Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm (1830-2) has some similarities, but uses a poem by Thomas Gray as its literary reference, not Plato. This is apparently inspired by a metaphor in Gray’s poem The Bard (1757). This compares the initially bright start to King Richard the Second’s reign, which rapidly became notoriously bad, to a gilded ship whose occupants were blissfully unaware of an approaching storm. The artist said that he intended this to be a moral warning about the pursuit of pleasure, and in doing so populates his ship with cavorting nudes. He does at least show the approaching storm in the background, together with two women swimming by the vessel’s prow.

Ary Renan (1857–1900), Le Plongeur (The Diver, The Coral Fisherman) (1882), oil on panel, 130.5 x 88.5 cm, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH. Wikimedia Commons.

Ary Renan’s Le Plongeur (The Diver, The Coral Fisherman) was completed in 1882 and exhibited in the Salon of that year, and is among the first of his distinctive paintings. A male coral diver has just returned to the surface, and is resting against rocks, his eyes closed with exhaustion. His right hand holds a shell and a long stream of coral mixed with seaweed, which he has presumably just taken from the bottom of the sea by those rocks. Standing by him is a partially clad young woman, whose robes are blowing in the breeze. She stares impassively, not at the diver, but into the distance. His clothes are draped on the rocks behind her, and near her feet are several fragments of coral. Its underlying narrative remains obscure.