Rodin Works: The Sirens, The nereids, The Song of the Sirens, Niobe |
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Rodin's sculpture depicts their sinuous bodies connected
by their outstretched arms and long, undelating hair - a formal echo of
the waves that surround them. Like many other works associated with the
watery element - such as In 'The Sphinx' (1886) and
its later variation 'The Succubus' we
recognize the dominating female character kneeling on the left side. As a
group, 'The
Sirens' appear for the first time on the lower left leaf of the 'Gates of
Hell'; later the composition was worked out as an independent work, shown at the 1889
Rodin-Monet exhibition, together with both versions of 'The
Sphinx'.
Finally, Rodin made use of the three sisters again in the final version of the second 'Victor Hugo Monument'
('Apotheosis of
Victor Hugo'), where they can be found in a tilted position at
the base of the pedestal,
Michelle Facos already pointed out that 'The Sirens' do not occur as such in Dante's 'Divine Comedy'. Aida Audeh, however, tries to trace the origin of the three sisters to Canto IX of Dante's 'Inferno', where Dante, approaching the city of Dis, encounters the three Furies, who threaten him with their serpent-like hair: Guarda", mi disse, "le feroci Erine. Quest'è Megera dal sinistro canto; quella che piange dal destro è Aletto; Tesifòn è nel mezzo"
The group is known in different sizes and materials: marble versions are exhibited in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, The Cleveland Museum, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, Denmark and in the Thiel Gallery, Djurgarden, Stockholm; bronze versions can be seen in the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest, the NGA in Washington and in the National Museum of Western Art,Tokyo. The Rodin Museum of Philadelphia and the Musée Dr. Faure in Aix-les-Bains each own both a plaster and a bronze version. Bibliography provided by NGA:
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'The
Sirens' shows three entwined female figures kneeling and sitting on a
piece of rock. According to Greek mythology, these sisters lived on
three small rocky islands, the Sirenum Scopuli. According to Ovid,
the nymphs failed to prevent the abduction of their playmate Persephone by
Hades. To punish them, her mother Demeter changed them into birds with
female faces.
Ancient
authors like Sophocles, Homer, Hyginus, Apollonius Rhodius, Tzetzes and
Apollodorus differ as to their exact number (two, three or four), their
proper names (Parthenope, Leucosia and Ligia, or Pisinoe, Aglaope and
Thelxiepia, or rather Teles, Raidne, Molpe and Thelxiope), the true
identity of their parents (Phorcys & the Muse Melpomene, or the storm
god Achelous & the Muse Terpsichore), and the way they received their
wings - when any.
the 
According to this
argument, Rodin has included the three enchanting girls at the waterside in
lieu of the three winged allies of the petrifying Medusa.
Geffroy, Gustave. "A. Rodin." La Justice (19 May 1887). 
