The painting The Mermaid by Howard Pyle is my all-time favorite piece of art. It is simple and beautiful, full of feeling and passion. The sheer emotions on the canvas reach out and grip your heart. Love can be a powerful enemy.
I once read book of famous paintings that described this painting very differently than the way I see it, but I know everyone sees different things based on his or her own personal backgrounds and lives. There are many perspectives to everything. Even knowing this, I feel the author didn't have a clue what he was talking about.
I recall him writting about how threatening the picture appeared, with the Mermaid clinging to the human as though she is about to pull him down into the foamy sea to his eternal, watery grave. Maybe his glasses were slightly askew? From my point of view, I see the human clinging just as dearly to the Mermaid. She doesn't appear to have a look of murderous contempt for the human at all. Instead, her face glows with a serene happiness, a calm emotion of love. Besides, does the human look fearful for his life? I don't see one iota of fright or struggle in any aspect of his posture. It is clear he is simply hanging on to a woman he loves, a woman who is of a different world than he, but this clearly matters not at all to either of them.
Love can be powerful. It makes us overlook certain aspects of a person, overlook flaws. In this work of art, the fact that she must live in the ocean and he on the land is a little pesky detail neither of them finds too deterring. They may be from two seperate worlds, never to be together, but their love is as strong and real as that of Romeo and Juliet.
