The Mermaid Paintings Art Gallery... Featuring Realistic Mermaid Paintings & Pictures of Classical, Celtic, & Victorian Mermaids & Mermen - Mermaid Art created in a style inspired by Classic Illustrators by Contemporary American Artist & Photographer Howard David Johnson... Welcome lovers of Mermaid paintings & Mermaid art for all ages...
|
|
 |
|
|
Mermaids & Mermen: Contemporary Mythical Art A brief introduction to Western merman and mermaid folklore and mythology with a gallery featuring new paintings, drawings and pictures in traditional oils, acrylics, prismacolors pencils and cutting edge 2D and 3D digital media in the style of the classic illustrators! |
|
MERMAIDS AND MERMEN; Origins of Mermaid folklore and an Art Gallery of Realistic Mermaid Paintings & Pictures and a brief definition and cultural history of Mermaids. |
|
"Merbabies" MMXI Mixed Media |
"Nerida, the Sea Nymphe" MMXXIV Mixed Media |
"A Mermaid Searching a Galleon" MMXVI Mixed Media |
THE NEREIDES (Nereids) were fifty sea-nymphe daughters of Nereus the old man of the sea. They were guardians of the sea's rich bounty and unlike mermaids they were protectors of sailors and fishermen, coming to the aid of those in distress. Individually they represented facets of the sea from the salty brine, to the sea foam, sand, rocks, waves and currents, as well as the various skills possessed by seamen. The Nereides were shape shifters often depicted in ancient art as beautiful young maidens, sometimes running with small dolphins or fish in their hands, or else riding on the backs of dolphins, hippokampoi (hippocamps) and other sea creatures.
 |
Mermaids
are supposed to be able to lure imaginative,
amorous men to destruction by enticing them into the depths of the sea;
and, as a correlative, they are sometimes represented as securing their
own destruction by quitting the sea, through marriage with a human
husband. By this means they magically obtain temporarily a complete
human form and soul, but always end in disaster to one or both of the
sacrilegious pair.
Mermaids are mythical and legendary
sea-dwelling creatures of European & Asian folklore, resembling a
woman, with a human
torso, but having a fishtail or tails instead of legs. Mermen are also
heard of, but have
a secondary role in the lore of the sea.
Other similar
water spirits include nymphs, dryads, oceanids, hamadryads, naiads, nerieds,
oreads, and
undines.
|
MERMAIDS and MERMEN
Mermaids and Mermen; Oannes or Hea, the fish god; The folkloric origins of the mermaid may go back to the semifish gods of ancient religions, such as the Philistine Dagon [below] and the Oannes of the Chaldaeo-Babylonian religion and the popular mythologies of the Greeks and Romans featured them prominently in the classic tales of the sea.
|
||||||
|
"The Sea Witch" MMXVI Mixed Media
|
"Queen of Atlantis" MMXVI Mixed Media
|
"A Terrifying Divination" MMXVI Mixed Media
|
||||
|
|
 |
|
||||
|
These deities are identical with the Greek Nereus, who is also pictured with the upper half of the body quite human, while the lower half is that of a fish. Nereus is also often portrayed as entirely a man, one of many shape-shifters of myth and folklore. Poseidon, or Neptune, from Greek and Roman mythology pictured below in both his forms, is probably the most famous of all the world's sea deities.
Oannes, who is said to have brought civilization to Babylonia, is sometimes figured as quite human, but dressed in the fish skins, according to berosus, and is represented as such in an image found at Nimrud by Layard. Many forms of mermaids and mermen may be found among these deities of the most ancient civilizations, and they also appear in early Celtic and Germanic (Teutonic ) mythology.
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
By the late middle ages the existence of
mermaids as living sea creatures was firmly believed. They are
represented in many coats of arms. Although scientific belief in
mermaids had largely faded by the 1700’s, public credulity had not. In
1611 reliable Dutch explorer Henry Hudson reported having sighted
mermaids. Many seamen reported sighting them and there were scholarly
accounts of the capture and examination of a number of such creatures.
|
||||||
 |
Similar mermaid and merman like figures, occur again and again in ancient, medieval, and later art and folklore. This curious belief may be simply explained away as a personifying of the power of the sea. Or again, the accounts of seals and other marine animals may have originated an idea that the sea contains many half-human creatures. There remains the euhemeristic solution, attributing the origin of the gods to the deification of historical heroes or real persons and events. Many stories of mermaids and sea-men resolve themselves into descriptions of a race like the Eskimos, who, when in their skin kayaks appeared from a distance to early voyagers like mermaids and mermen, with their upper torso well above the water.
|
 |
||||
| It has also been suggested by some scientists that such marine animals as the dugong or the closely related manatee may, at a distance bear enough resemblance to a human female to have given vigor to the mermaid legend. Fake mermaids were exhibited well into the 1800’s and popular fascination with mermaids continues in our culture through new motion pictures, art, and literature to this day | ||||||
| .
Thank you for visiting Mermaids & Mermen: Origins of Mermaid folklore: An
Educational Art Gallery with paintings & pictures of mermaids. |
||||||
|
Keep scrolling down for more Art Galleries, more paintings, fantasy art, & essays by the artist on Art & Technology... |
||||||
|
Enter a world of Beauty and Imagination...
INDEX of GALLERIES ~ LINKS to LARGER ART The Realistic and Fantastic Art Galleries of Contemporary American Illustrator Howard David Johnson Click on these Fun Educational Realistic Art Gallery link icons for Two-fisted Tales of VALOR & Frontline Combat featuring Legendary Warriors of History, Knights and ladies of Arthurian Legend, Celtic, Nordic, Asian and Olympian gods & monsters, unicorns, dragons, fairies... and more! All these pieces of art and the text are legally copyrighted and were registered with the U.S. Library of Congress Office of Copyright by the author, Howard David Johnson All rights reserved worldwide. Permission for many academic or non-commercial uses is freely and legally available by simply contacting the author via e-mail or visiting www.howarddavidjohnson.com/permission.htm |
|
Thank You for Visiting the MermaidArt Gallery of Howard David Johnson...
Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( 1840- 1893) - "Swan Lake"
*****
This Gallery is lovingly dedicated to the Victorian Illustrators and Mermaid Artists who inspired me...
All these images & text are legally copyrighted & were registered with the U.S. Library of Congress Office of Copyright by the author, Howard David Johnson All rights reserved worldwide. Permission for many legal non-commercial uses is freely available by simply contacting the author or visiting www.howarddavidjohnson.com/permission.htm
*****
