Herbert James Draper
English · 19th–20th century
English Classicist painter (1863–1920) of the late-Victorian academic school, best known for dramatic mythological seascapes. His Ulysses and the Sirens (1909) shows the sirens surging up out of a stormy sea to climb aboard the hero's boat.
Connection to Taylor Swift
Community viewers read the storm-and-sirens scene of The Fate of Ophelia music video as an echo of Draper's painting; a visual identification, not stated by Taylor or the hosts.
Notable Works
- Ulysses and the Sirens (1909)
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
Ulysses and the Sirens
“I heard you calling on the megaphone, you want to see me all alone”
The video's storm-and-sirens scene was read as an echo of Draper's Ulysses and the Sirens, in which the sirens climb from a heaving sea toward the hero's boat. Set beside the opening drowning tableau, the allusion turns the song's call-and-rescue into something more double-edged — a voice on the water that may lure as easily as save.