THE REINVENTED MYTH The depictions of Sappho in the FW Neess collection, in which the woman appears as a victim but also as heroin, combine sensuality with tragic feeling and the world of poetry with musical evocation in Maxence and Lenoir. A similar equation can be found in the Lircia by the Belgian Constant Montald (1862–1944), painted in 1893. The mysterious woman, sometimes passed off as Ophelia, who travels on a richly decorated boat and plays the lyre among swans - one of which strangely looks towards the viewer in the foreground - cannot be traced back to any literary source. The title evokes song and music, but not a specific theatrical or poetic scene: the painter performs a synthesis of Ophelia, Sappho and the Lady of Shalott, concentrating his inspiration entirely on a dreamy evocation of art. Nevertheless, the union of woman, art and nature that is characteristic of the symbolist repertoire can also be found here. Blossoms, water lilies and slumbering waters create a timeless and melancholic space. Music also plays an important role in the symbolist sphere, both in the line of Richard Wagner's total work of art and with a view to the synesthesia that Charles Baudelaire describes in his poem Correspondences.