Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus

1829

Oil on canvas, 132.5 × 203 cm · National Gallery, London

Painted for the Royal Academy exhibition of 1829, Turner’s Homer is mostly light and colour. It came to the nation with the Turner Bequest in 1856.

Ulysses stands on deck in a scarlet cloak, arms raised, under a red banner.
The giant’s shadowy body sprawls along the clifftop, one hand raised to throw a rock.
The rising sun is drawn by Apollo’s horses; sea nymphs with stars on their foreheads swim at the prow.
Still in its original 19th-century frame.

Odysseus blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus to escape his cave, then taunted him from the ship. Polyphemus prayed to his father Poseidon, who kept Odysseus from home for years.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain