Traditional explanations of Symbolist art’s history dwell upon revivalist attempts to plumb myth and folklore in search of animal-human hybrids: predatory sirens, alluring naiads and exotic mermaids, for example. Yet Symbolist painters were resolutely modern—among them French artists Alexandre Séon and Odilon Redon, or Americans Arthur Mathews and Alexander Harrison—who also embraced contemporary Bohemian body cultures, and explored images of corporeal transformation.