Most mythologies have tree spirits, although those in Asia tend to be expressed in sculpture rather than painted images. In European art, these are most usually termed Dryads or Hamadryads, drawing from classical Greek and Roman myth.

Strictly speaking, a Dryad is the spirit of a specific oak tree, although the term is normally used more broadly for the nymph associated with any specific tree, of whatever type, or a wood nymph. A Hamadryad is a Dryad who is irreversibly bonded to and in a tree, such that the death of the tree brings about the death of the Hamadryad. The term also seems to be used for a Dryad associated with a specific species of tree, such as Balanos for the oak. However, I suspect the terms are used interchangeably in the titles of most paintings.

Paintings of classical myths were most frequent and popular during and after the Renaissance, but at that time, few if any depicted tree spirits or Dryads.

They became more popular in the nineteenth century, in association with the growing interest in ‘faerie’ paintings and the like. Francis Danby, a contemporary of JWM Turner, painted this magnificent view of The Wood Nymph’s Hymn to the Rising Sun (1845), in which the Dryads are all but invisible, I think.

Their first clear expression seems to have been in Émile Bin’s The Hamadryad in 1870. Being nymphs, of course, they must be shown nude. When I first saw this painting, I thought it was a depiction of Erysichthon chopping down Ceres’ sacred oak, from Book 8 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. However, the man is far too young to have an adult daughter, and this tree doesn’t appear to be an oak, nor is it in a sacred grove.

Evelyn De Morgan’s The Dryad (1884-85) looks worryingly sad and lonely as she stares into the distance from within the trunk of her ancient ash. There are delightful details too: the flowers at the foot of the tree, a cat and a bird in its branches, and a pale lizard beside the Dryad’s right leg.

Even the renegade and often sacrilegious Félicien Rops seems to have taken his Hamadryad (c 1885) quite seriously. But, as usual with Rops, nothing is quite as straightforward as it seems.

The nude woman is seen embracing the trunk of a tree, and is definitely not a part of it. In her left arm, she holds a blue cape, and scattered around the foot of the tree are white garments or pieces of fabric. There’s a green furled umbrella on the ground, with a woman’s hat on top. Around the base of the tree, and decorating the woman’s hair, are scarlet flowers. Rops has written at the top of the sheet about ‘Le Grand Pan’ singing, and at the lower left about travels to the countries of the ‘vieux dieux’, or old gods. Perhaps the woman has come to visit her lover the Hamadryad, and has undressed ready to make love?

Walter Crane’s more illustrative watercolour of Nyads and Dryads, probably painted between 1880-1900, is less enigmatic. He melds the Dryads in with their trees, puts the Naiads or water nymphs in the water, and has a river god watch from the reeds in the distance.

Painted at about the same time, Gabriel Guay’s autumnal vision of The Last Dryad has her embracing a herm or term (a bust of a god on a rectangular pillar). Her deep copper hair matches the paler yellows and browns of the leaves falling around her.

John William Waterhouse’s Hamadryad from 1893-95 is watching a young faun, perhaps Pan himself, playing reed pipes. At his feet is a thyrsus tipped with a pine cone, referring to Maenads or Bacchantes.

Henry John Stock’s painterly portrait of The Dryad from 1913 skilfully blends her hair and torso with the tree. Almost forgotten today, Stock trained in the Royal Academy Schools in London, and made a living painting portraits. However, he also had a leaning towards painting more imaginative and narrative works, influenced by William Blake and George Frederic Watts. Stock’s paintings are starting to become popular again, and now fetch substantial prices at auction.

The other great tradition of visual art which features tree spirits as motifs is Japanese painting.

Ogata Gekkō painted his Nihon hana zue (which may just mean In Japan!) in 1896, using pigments on mulberry paper, and this was apparently published by Sasaki Toyokichi. The painting refers to a play Love Story at the Snow-covered Barrier, with a story similar to that of Erysichthon in Ceres’ sacred grove. Its villain wants to cut down a huge black cherry tree in full blossom. Just as he is about to swing his axe, the spirit of the tree appears as a courtesan, and freezes the villain’s hands. The spirit of the tree then overcomes him, and the tree is left unscathed.

I would have loved to show paintings of tree spirits from other mythologies. One I find particularly interesting is the Gille Dubh or Ghillie Dhu of Scottish (Gaelic) mythology, who is a solitary male faerie devoted to children. In addition to stories about him in the birch woods near Gairloch, in the Highlands, his name has become associated with the camouflage suit worn by military snipers, known as a Ghillie Suit. These were originally developed by Scottish gamekeepers for camouflage when hunting, and were then used by the Lovat Scouts, a Highland regiment of the British Army, during the second Boer War.

Not content with Naiads and other water nymphs, the alchemist and proto-scientist Paracelsus (1493-1541) invented his own elemental beings associated with water, Undines or Ondines. He also elaborated their nature: although they cunningly resemble beautiful young women, they aren’t human, so lack a soul. The only way they can enjoy an afterlife is thus to marry a human.

Although that might appear a beguiling option for both, any man who is unfaithful to their Ondine wife will die as a result. The children of a union between a man and an Ondine are humans, having a soul, but also have a trait linked to water, known as a watermark. This might be some anatomical abnormality that periodically has to be bathed in water, for example.

By the nineteenth century, this amalgam of classical Naiads and alchemical elements was becoming popular in artistic creation. In 1842, the year after his death from tuberculosis, Aloysius Bertrand’s (1807-1841) collection of prose poems Gaspard de la Nuit was published, featuring the poem Ondine. The collection inspired Maurice Ravel’s brilliant piano suite of the same name, of which the first piece is the ferociously difficult Ondine.

Undine, a novella by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777-1843), was published in 1811, and has since influenced a slightly different tradition. It gave rise to Hans Christian Andersen’s story of The Little Mermaid in 1837, which became extremely popular throughout Europe and North America.

In the 1840s, versions of Fouqué’s story had made their way to London in the form of a play. One of the first artists to commit this to canvas was the great ‘faerie painter’ Daniel Maclise, in his 1843 depiction of A Scene from ‘Undine’. Although there are other Undines frolicking in the water at the upper left, Maclise concentrates on the romance between Undine and the man who is to give her a soul, in exchange for his lifelong fidelity.

JMW Turner appears to have seen a similar stage production that inspired his Undine Giving the Ring to Massaniello, Fisherman of Naples of 1846. This is one of a pair of his paintings in which spiritual power and transformation are represented by brilliant light; the other, The Angel standing in the Sun, is a vision of the Last Judgement. Turner apparently shows Undine offering a wedding ring to a fisherman, although much of its detail has now been lost in the dazzling light. Around are other Undines in the waves.

Perhaps living up to his name, John William Waterhouse painted Undine in 1872, arising from a fountain, and modestly dressed. This was twenty years before he took to the nude Naiads of Hylas, shown in yesterday’s article.

Jules Lefebvre had no qualms with turning his Ondine of 1882 into yet another classical nude, although her brilliant red hair is an unusual touch.

In 1889, Paul Gauguin painted two works in which Ondine is shown among waves in the seas. The first, known now as In the Waves, or Ondine (I) (above), appears the more complete. Ondine II, in pastel and gouache (below), seems likely to have been a study, and its lower edge appears to have been cut or cropped out. He may well have seen Lefebvre’s painting, as the fuller version also features red hair.

With interest growing in the femme fatale, Ondine was revamped into a figure like Medea, who cast a spell on her husband. Albert Tschautsch’s Enchantment from 1896 is an example of this changing image.

Carl Wilhelmson is one of the few who has succeeded in making Undine (1899) appear not quite physically there, as she shimmers among red tulips.

Egon Schiele’s Undine II of 1908 was made in truly mixed media, including gouache, crayons, watercolour, white and gold paints, and a dash of Cubism too, it would appear. Although notoriously hard to read, I can see Undine at the upper left, propped up on her elbows. Nearer to the viewer is a bald-headed man, and there are other presumably female figures laid across the centre of the paper.

My final selection is an undated work from around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries by Antoine Calbet: Ondines, showing two nymphs in a rippled pool of water. One has red hair, which may refer to Gauguin’s version. His style is reminiscent of the great Swedish figurative painter Anders Zorn.

In 1939, Jean Giradoux based his play Ondine on Fouqué’s novella of 1811, and that has in turn been performed in a ballet by Hans Werner Henze (music) and Frederick Ashton (choreography). Ondine there tells her future husband Hans that she will be the breath of his lungs. After they are married, Hans reunites with his first love Bertha; when Hans later marries Bertha, he has to make a conscious effort to breathe. Ondine then kisses Hans, causing him to stop breathing and die, a femme fatale indeed.

There is a rare medical condition in which the automatic control of breathing fails, putting the patient at risk of stopping breathing when they fall asleep. This is known as congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, or Ondine’s curse. I’m confident that neither Paracelsus nor Giradoux had ever come across this condition, but their concepts and words proved extraordinarily prescient.

Narrative painting of classical myths has many conventions that can appear confusing. This weekend I look at those associated with river gods and their associated nymphs Naiads, and tomorrow more recent relatives Ondines.

In Greek, and subsequently Roman, mythology, the river gods or Potamoi (Greek for rivers) are three thousand sons of Oceanus, the great river encircling the earth, and Tethys, his Titan sister and wife. A river god is both that river and a distinct deity: Achelous is the god of the River Achelous, the largest in Greece, who wrestled unsuccessfully with Hercules for the right to marry Deianira.

Associated with sources and bodies of fresh water are also water nymphs, Naiads or Potamides, often stated to be the daughters of the river gods. In ancient times, there was a weaker distinction between fresh and salt waters, so although nymphs associated with the sea are usually termed Nereids when in Mediterranean waters, or Oceanids, Naiads can also be encountered in what we would consider to be sea.

The standard depiction for any river god in a classical story is that of an older bearded man lounging by a large earthenware pot from which water pours forth into the river. This is shown well in Santi di Tito’s fresco of The Sisters of Phaethon Transformed into Poplars, from about 1570. Although this story tells how the sisters of Phaeton grieve for him after his death, and are transformed into poplar trees, as it shows a river, there must still be a god of that river.

Rubens’ delightful painting of Romulus and Remus being discovered by Faustulus, from 1615-16, shows both the river god Tiberinus and his daughter nymph, at the left with the god’s pot.

In Nicolas Poussin’s Cephalus and Aurora from 1630, the river god is again at the left, and looks tired of the whole business, with a mere trickle of water emerging from his pot.

This beautiful painting attributed to Luigi Garzi, of Alpheus and Arethusa from around 1690, shows one river god and two nymphs. The god leans on his pot, and in his left hand holds a small spade, another attribute sometimes seen with them.

Antoine Coypel’s version of the same Ovidian myth, Alpheus Chasing Arethusa from about 1710, places the river god at the lower left, and two Naiads separately on the right.

So far, the river deities have enjoyed a rather passive life in paintings, but this wasn’t a requirement. In François Boucher’s Pan and Syrinx from 1743, the nymph Syrinx is seeking the help of the river god and Naiad, as she attempts to evade Pan’s attentions. The god’s pot is almost hidden beneath luxuriant red fabric, under his right hand.

In Tiepolo’s Apollo and Daphne (c 1744-45), the river god is given much of the foreground and lower section of the painting, and holds an oar or paddle, a more unusual but distinctive attribute.

Sometimes, artists conceal the river god as if challenging the viewer to locate him. This is the case in Anton Raphael Mengs’ fresco of Apollo, Mnemosyne, and the Nine Muses (1761), in which the god’s bearded and hoary figure is tucked away behind Apollo’s legs. There’s also an Orphic tradition in which the River Mnemosyne is the source of water to bring inspiration, and this perhaps alludes to that obscure sub-narrative.

In some paintings, river gods seem to be included even when their river is nowhere to be seen. Nicolas-Guy Brenet’s painting of Aethra Showing her Son Theseus the Place Where his Father had Hidden his Arms (1768) tucks this extra into the lower left corner again.

Martin Johann Schmidt’s Labour of the Danaides (1785) informs us that the Danaïds were also water-nymphs by placing a river god at the left. They were condemned to keep trying to fill this leaky container with water as their penance in the underworld.

Walter Crane shows the association between Naiads and other nymphs in his watercolour of Nyads and Dryads, probably painted between 1880-1900. He melds the Dryads in with their trees, puts the ‘Nyads’ or Naiads in the water, and has a river god watching from the reeds in the distance.

By the end of the nineteenth century, enthusiasm for the tradition of showing river gods was waning, and nude, cavorting Naiads came to the fore. One of their greatest exponents was John William Waterhouse, who led with this first tentative retelling of the myth of Hylas in 1893, in A Naiad, or Hylas with a Nymph.

Hylas was companion and servant to Heracles (Hercules), who accompanied the hero on Jason’s ship Argo. When the Argonauts were ashore in modern Turkey, Hylas approached the spring of Pegae, where the Naiads fell in love with and kidnapped him. He vanished without trace, leading Heracles and Polyphemus to search for him at length. They were delayed in this so long that the Argo sailed without them.

This first version shows one of the Naiads discovering the sleeping Hylas by a small river. There’s no sign of any river god, but there are some goats on the right side of the painting.

Three years later, Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs (1896) stays closer to the myth. Hylas holds an earthenware pot, almost as if he were about to become the river god.

In January 2018, this well-known painting was removed from exhibition in Manchester, England, and replaced by a notice which explained that a temporary space had been left “to prompt conversations about how we display and interpret artworks in Manchester’s public collection”. The painting soon returned after protests. It’s surprising that more than a century after it was first exhibited, it was still capable of causing such controversy.

Waterhouse is not the only artist to have courted controversy with this story. Henrietta Rae’s Hylas and the Water Nymphs from about 1909 was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1910, and is no less fleshly than Waterhouse’s version. Rae was a pioneer in her painting of nudes, at a time when most of society still considered that women shouldn’t be allowed to attend classes learning to draw or paint nude models.

Edward Poynter’s Cave of the Storm Nymphs (1903) might appear to be still more exploitative of the male appeal of the female nude, but there’s a more complex narrative behind this scene. Its literary reference is most probably to the Naiads of Homer’s Odyssey, book 13, who live in a sea cave, updated to encompass more contemporary references to Wreckers, who lured ships onto the rocks in order to steal their precious cargos: sirens without the socially unacceptable habit of cannibalism.