Welcome to Mermaids of Earth.
This site is about mermaids on planet Earth.
The first focus is to gather information on all mermaid sculptures in public places, including excellent photos, data on who created them, why they are where they are, when they were created, the stories or legends that inspired them, and of course exactly where they are located, so they can easily be visited.
Why? Because mermaids are all around us. Lots of them. No, not live ones of course, but mermaids in stories, paintings, graphic arts, movies, sculptures and other artforms.
I became interested in mermaid art and particularly in mermaid sculpture, partly because I grew up in Denmark, home to Hans Christian Andersen, author of the fairy tale The Little Mermaid. As a dane, The Little Mermaid is pretty much part of one’s culture.
The statue in Copenhagen harbor of The Little Mermaid is world famous and an icon of Denmark.
But the subject of mermaids goes back a long time before Hans Christian Andersen, and far beyond the borders of Denmark. Man and women have speculated about mermaids through the ages, and much art has been created showing what mermaids and their environment might look like.
This rich cultural heritage involving mermaids spans millennia and many corners of the Earth, from New Zealand and Australia, through Asia, Greece, much of Europe, India, Latin America and North America and more.
There are statues of mermaids all over the world. Some are astoundingly beautiful, and many have a story out of legend or folk lore, or a great story on how they came to be. You have to look for them though, as there has not been a map or index available. I aim to make this interesting part of our planet’s many cultures available to others.
Mermaids have been portrayed as mystical, dangerous, beautiful, alluring, treacherous, longing, demure, aesthetic and sexy. There are different kinds of mermaids and big differences in how artists conceive their mermaids. We now have a project going to find as many mermaid sculptures as possible. This site will show some of the mermaids we have come across, and show representing all these qualities and more.
If you know of mermaids in sculpture or art and would like to help, let me know.
Enjoy,
Philip
