Calypso by George Hitchcock comes from one of the most famous detours in Homer’s Odyssey.

Calypso was the nymph of Ogygia, the island where Odysseus is held for years before he is finally allowed to return home.

Hitchcock does not paint her as a villain or a flat mythological symbol. He places her on a hillside of flowers, dressed in white, crowned with violets, her face turned upward as if she is waiting, wanting, or refusing to let go.

That is what makes the painting feel so charged. The scene is soft, but the story underneath it is not. Calypso is beauty, longing, possession and loneliness all at once- a figure caught between paradise and captivity.

A mythological art print for bedrooms, living rooms and gallery walls that need romance with a sharper edge.