The Genius of Greek Poetry

This painting engages imagery and literature that Watts encountered on a trip to Greece in 1856. The reclining nude adopts the pose of a marble sculpture on the Parthenon’s pediment. Behind him, figures dive and wade in the water. The scene evokes narratives from ancient Greek poetry in which sirens’ songs lured sailors to rocky coastlines. Watts completed four versions of this painting over 20 years. During this period, he developed a frame design favored by Victorian artists, known as the “Watts frame.” Seen here, this type of frame was inspired by an Italian Renaissance model. The ornamental moldings have a stylized acanthus pattern on the outer edge and a small leaf-bud pattern on the inner edge. Watts’s modern innovation was to apply gilding directly to the frame’s wide frieze, allowing the oak’s grain to show through. Another version of a Watts frame surrounds Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s "A Sea-Spell," nearby.