Fluids in art: "The water's language was a wondrous one, some narrative on a recurrent subject ..."

Artists spent a great deal of time studying anatomy for precise rendering of the human body as well as light, shadows, and perspective for convincing representation of the three-dimensional world. But in many paintings, they also had to depict fluids in their static and dynamic states – a subject they could not study thoroughly, which led to a number of glaring misrepresentations or deliberate deceits.