A Sea-Queen’s Mercy

The wine-dark sea is not only inhabited by Poseidon Ennosigaios (Shaker of the Earth). It is also home to Leucothea, the “white goddess” whose presence is seen in the foam that bubbles and vanishes at the edge of each wave, the candid flower that blooms and dies with every surge of salt water. It is she who welcomes Odysseus after he flees from Calypso’s island. And while Penelope weaves Laertes’ funeral shroud in Ithaca every day, only to unravel it every night, her world-wandering husband is given another veil by this sea goddess, one that will carry him safely to a welcoming shore. This passage of The Odyssey – though certainly not the most oft-cited – inspired Johann Heinrich Fuseli, a painter of dreams whose sinister scenes were filled with dark, enigmatic figures. In time, he earned the sobriquet of “Painter Ordinary to the Devil.” The Swiss philosopher and theologian Johann Kaspar Lavater, Fuseli’s lifelong friend, once wrote of him: “His spirits are storm wind, his ministers flames of fire!!”