Polonaise with a Mermaid is a preliminary study, carved in beautifully grained elm wood. In the future large version, the three figures will ‘walk around’, as a relief in a thick red cedar trunk.
Polonaise with a Mermaid measures 47.5 by 19.5 centimeters.
This sculpture will become part of a ‘totem pole’, a stacking of sculptures made by members of the association Guts en Klopper in Huis ter Heide.
A mermaid with a whale tail
I gave the polonaise a surrealistic ‘tail-ender’: a mermaid. It is a mythical creature, evolved from the Sirens who in Homer’s Odyssey tried to lure the hero Odysseus onto the rocks with their beautiful singing.
My version of the Sirens who tried to seduce the Greek hero Odysseus with hypnotizing singing.
So what should such a seductive mermaid look like? No one can verify. The famous ‘Little Mermaid’ in the sea off Copenhagen even has partial legs. I gave my ‘Mermaid’ the tail fin of the whales I photographed along the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada. Her arms are longer than those of a human, to be able to accommodate a golden bracelet, like those worn in ancient Greece, often with a snake head.
Polonaise with a Mermaid? No, the inspiration is a polonaise during a German carnival party.
The man and the woman leading the polonaise are based on a photo from Germany. I think taken during carnival, long ago. A wacky black and white picture, colorized with AI on the WDR website.
Straight Greek noses
For my sculpture I stylized the figures in this photo. I exchanged the wide shirt of the central man for the tight morning coat of the last man, as if he were a groom. No silly hat on his head, but ’60s sideburns, like Neil Young had in his hippie years. As a reference to my earlier sculpture 3 Sirens I gave the man a straight, Greek nose, as well as the front woman and the mermaid.
A stunning couture by Dutch designer Ronald van der Kemp RVDK.
The front woman is, like the mermaid, half naked. Her long dress falls in folds, like the tail of a bird of paradise. The inspiration for this was a stunning dress by Ronald van der Kemp, the couturier who makes high fashion from leftover fabrics. I once portrayed him for P+.
The woman in front has her thumb up. In the final sculpture she will have a view of the mermaid’s tail.
Are she and the mermaid competitors? Who will the man choose? Reality or fantasy?
Jan Bom, July 21, 2025
