Frankly, given how small and unimportant sirens incident is, I assume it is because they are tempting and female and thus painters had an excuse to imagine and paint naked women (they are not described naked in the poem). As in, it is short fun part of the poem that sparks imagination.
It is short and more fun to paint or tell then Penelope being helpless alone in her chamber.
Perhaps, for sirens at least. But that was just an example. I haven't read The Odyssey myself so I'm not well placed to give further specific examples but I was trying to point to the idea that old cultural mythos and stories are there to provide instantiations of archetypes.
I'm not sure your disparagement of classical painters holds much weight though, given they painted plenty of naked women without needing an "excuse". The motivations seem more to do with notions of depicting beauty or purity than just being lecherous.
Sirens story as in poem has no beauty nor purity in it. Really. Sirens are not described and promises to give him knowledge, mostly about Trojan war. Nothing beautiful or pure about that.
And I think that some painters liked to paint naked women and customers liked those paintings without it being necessary disparaging. The line between "lecherous" and "beauty or purity" is mostly the one of framing - whether you are determined to see it as good or bad.
Nevetheless, it is a projection of own ideas into old story, because we want to see ourselves in the oldest known poems. People want our civilization to spring from that, so they project onto it. It is not like every sirens painting painter would read the poem, they heard the story as part of their education and imagined the rest.
> Sirens story as in poem has no beauty nor purity in it. Really. Sirens are not described and promises to give him knowledge, mostly about Trojan war. Nothing beautiful or pure about that.
I wasn't claiming they were. Just that that seemed to be the classical framing of them. I can see how luring in sailors with beautiful song could be transferred onto luring with physical beauty and how that could map to classical femininity, but the relation does not affect the original meaning.
> The line between "lecherous" and "beauty or purity" is mostly the one of framing - whether you are determined to see it as good or bad.
I don't think it is. Lechery is linked to sexual gratification, basically voyeurism. I'm essentially saying I don't think these paintings existed for sexual purposes. Beauty is more of an aesthetic appreciation, or can be used as a symbol for higher values (and ugliness as a symbol for moral ugliness).
> It is not like every sirens painting painter would read the poem, they heard the story as part of their education and imagined the rest.
This is why moral tales are a good framework for thinking, rather than always giving you the answer. They give us symbols with which to reason, and so much of our conversational reasoning is performed using metaphors and idioms.
> I can see how luring in sailors with beautiful song could be transferred onto luring with physical beauty and how that could map to classical femininity, but the relation does not affect the original meaning.
That has more to do with artist then original poem. Sirens promiss knowledge, in particular knowledge of who did what and how who ended during trojan war. Odysseus is tempted to learn what happened to his friends during war. The classical feminity of Christian culture is not the same thing as story in original poem. It changes meaning a lot, into a different story. Projection and replacement of original knowledge/war info into "classical feminity" is the sort of thing I was talking about.
As for beauty, I don't see much difference. Or rather, I don't find it important for anything except value judgement of painter. If painter used sirens as excuse to paint nude sirens out of sense of beauty, my original point applies the same. The poem does not really have higher values there anyway. It has less to do with poem itself and more to do with what artists wants to paint for his own reasons.
> This is why moral tales are a good framework for thinking, rather than always giving you the answer.
Why do you think Odysseus is moral tale? It does not read like moral tale. Whatever moral tales are seems irrelevant to original poem. This one is even the part of story told by Odysseus himself when he is trying to please audience instead of by neutral narrator. The poem is pretty clear about Odysseus not being completely reliable narrator. Odysseus lies or pretends to be someone else often, so treating whatever he says as moral tale strikes me as odd.
The most important part of that episode is the way Odysseus develops a plan to hear their song and live to tell the tale. Today it might seem minor, but people have been fascinated by this character for centuries (Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, and so on).
To sum it up, Odysseus is the pursuer of knowledge par excellence, hero and everyman at the same time. And this is arguably one of the cornerstones of the (western, at least) way we see ourselves.
The goddess tells him what to do, he does not devise the plan. Odysseus is not everyman in any meaningful sense nor is he seeking knowledge except that short incident and even there knowledge seem to be info about war he fought in the past. And frankly, I dont think he really represents something you should strive for.
She gives him the choice to steer clear of them, or to risk his life and that of his party to listen to them. He decided to take the risky road just for the sake of knowledge, which was a powerful message in prehistoric Greece. Again, it is so ingrained in today's culture that it seems trivial.
> nor is he seeking knowledge except that short incident
Well let us just agree to disagree here. Most of the episodes boil down to "The gang lands to get (rest/food/water), Odysseus wants to know more about the place, many die".
Just look at Book Nine: the Lotus Eaters and Polyphemus incidents are totally Odysseus' fault. There was no need at all to explore these lands.
> And frankly, I dont think he really represents something you should strive for.
I agree with you: while in the antiquity he has been regarded as a model, today Odysseus represents who we actually are, as beings torn between knowledge and suffering.
1.) Both choices are risky. There is no way for Odysseus to avoid danger. There is high chance the other road would be even more dangerous then sirens.
2.) She tells him exactly what to do. He does not devise plan.
3.) No Odysseus is not seeking knowledge unless you are really trying hard to see it there. Looking what I can steel can be twisted into knowledge seeking, but I don't think it is too good interpretation.
4.) There is no reason to think Odysseus was seen as model in antiquity. That is projecting 19 century adventure books interpretation into much more nuanced and much better written text.
Odysseus is not torn between knowledge and suffering. He seeks to go home plain and simple and weeps when it fails. He wants to go home and he led all his men to death.
It is short and more fun to paint or tell then Penelope being helpless alone in her chamber.