Does Not Illustrate: Literature.The Odyssey

I know classical art usually gets a free pass for being NSFW, but there are other issues with the current picture:

It always looks weird when a work is illustrated by something else, although in the case of something as old The Odyssey it's inevitable.

However, the painting is a bit too "modern" representation of the Sirens, and thus factually incorrect compared to the actual story, where they are bird-women, like on this different, more accurate painting◊.

Of course, we can look for a different scene; there's no dearth of illustrations for Homer's epic.

edited 11th Nov '15 11:44:23 AM by StFan

Opened. I actually like that painting with the harpies a bit more than the current, but I'm open to other options.

I find the suggestion to accurately portray a scene from the story, while the current is a bit too "artistic" for my taste.

When I cropped the current one's white background I wondered why the sirens and the scene in general looked so weird to me. Now I know it was probably the lack of inhuman features in said creatures. This one is a lot better.

OP suggestion is more clear on what's actually happening, so I can support that.

edited 12th Dec '15 5:31:10 PM by eroock

Looks alright in my mobile device, so it should be fine.

I like the OP's suggestion.

If the size of the picture the main issue, we can always trim it on the left, I'd say of about one-third its width, and still get a decent illustration.

1) I think it looks fine small, and 2) cropping a painting seems outrageous to me, composition is a major consideration in creating works of art, I'd rather use no image than a cropped painting (but the uncropped one is fine).

^ Then you should be appalled by the cropped image on The Scream.

Bump. Any more opinions? Or options?

Sorry, but the new image isn't very good simply do to its small size, as you can barely make out anything. Either crop the image, or find one that is smaller yet still has clearly visible details.

That's way too much cropped.

Personally I think it's fine uncropped, though. The finer details aren't as important as the overall scene.

edited 22nd Nov '15 11:06:36 AM by AnotherDuck

I do rather like the proposal a fair bit more than the present version, as it's immediately more apparent exactly what scene is being represented.

Bump. Does this essentially boil down to cropped or uncropped?

I think I lean toward the uncropped version.

Same here.

I think the uncropeed version looks better.

6/uncropped is fine.

Re-bump; anyone else? Crowner?

I've hooked a crowner with the discussed options and a couple more that I saw in GIS.

Friday votes bump; two in the green, almost tied.

One more bump; still two in the green.