The Mermaids (Kramskoi)

It depicts nineteen rusalki, who, according to Slavic mythology, were river or lake spirits who appeared at night in the form of young women.

They fulfilled a similar folkloric role to sirens; often enchanting young men before luring them to their deaths at the bottom of the water.

[3] The painting is based around works by Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol's 1831 fantastic story "A May Night, or The Drowned Maiden,"[4] and shows that despite the realist principles of the newly formed Peredvizhniki movement in which Kramskoi was a leading light, the artist continued to be interested in more Romantic fantasy and fairy-tale subject matter.

The women occupy the centre mid-ground of the painting and are lit from high above the left hand of the canvas, presumably by the moon.

In the left foreground the last of Kramskoi's rusalki is emerging from among the reeds, while in the background one of the women wrings out the water from her hair.