0:00:06.764,0:00:09.390
We are in the Palazzo Barberini

0:00:09.390,0:00:12.762
looking at a painting by Caravaggio,

0:00:12.762,0:00:16.267
called Narcissus at the Source. This is the title.

0:00:16.267,0:00:19.334
And this is the story from Ovid of a boy

0:00:19.334,0:00:23.174
who falls in love with his own reflection in the water

0:00:23.174,0:00:26.703
so much that he falls in and drowns.

0:00:26.703,0:00:38.631
Of course there is a flower named after him as is the word Narcissism.

0:00:38.631,0:00:43.488
In a Christian context it is a morality tale, a caution, about

0:00:43.488,0:00:48.346
what is important and what is not important. But it is an extraordinarily interesting subject for a painter,

0:00:48.346,0:00:48.846
That's true, especially because you get the reality of the figure and the reflection. Of course paintings

0:00:48.846,0:01:00.983
themselves are sort of mirrors or reflections . They certainly are and the idea of the artist's responsibility in terms of depiction,

0:01:00.983,0:01:03.101
in terms of creating a faithfulness

0:01:03.101,0:01:11.100
and the dangers that are inherent in that. It is interesting if you look at this painting, in the reflection, within the

0:01:11.100,0:01:19.449
painting,is a dimmer image, much dimmer,and it is really only the highlights that come forward. The painting

0:01:19.449,0:01:22.516
is also incredibly abstract. The surface of the water,

0:01:22.516,0:01:31.368
the edge of the water is almost dividing the canvas almost exactly in half, not quite, but close, creating this continuity between

0:01:31.368,0:01:39.376
the hands that are touching and the arms, and the circular form inscribed within the rectangle of the canvas.

0:01:39.376,0:01:48.461
It seems to me that it could be a kind of metaphor for a kind of meditation on painting and its goals and its dangers , as

0:01:48.461,0:01:57.832
the painter had to think about how he was painting the so-called reality, the real figure versus the reflection

0:01:57.832,0:02:05.680
of the real figure and painting itself is a reflection itself. The other thing is the foreshortening of the

0:02:05.680,0:02:16.979
figure itself leans out toward us with a kind of longing. All of those very Baroque elements of really moving into

0:02:16.979,0:02:25.283
the space of the viewer are here and that tenebrosso , the dark background really makes us focus on the figure that fills

0:02:25.283,0:02:33.950
the shape of the canvas. The thing that is really vivid is the knee and also the shirt sleeve. Often the thing that

0:02:33.950,0:02:51.264
draws our attention is not to the thing that you think in realism

0:02:51.264,0:02:51.764
Whereas in reality the thing that you might look at or have the thing that light falls on is not necessarily the most

0:02:51.764,0:02:54.851
important thing in the room. I want to look at his left hand on the right side of the canvas. Lets take

0:02:54.851,0:03:00.007
a close look. What seems to be happening is his right hand on the left side seems to be firmly planted on

0:03:00.007,0:03:07.048
the ground. He seems to be so absentminded, so taken with his own image thet he seems that he's about to support himself

0:03:07.048,0:03:11.726
where he can't on the water's edge. He looks as if he is about to fall in, and this might be that moment.

0:03:12.930,9:59:59.000
He is almost reaching in to embrace himself. He is falling in love with himself, literally. But he will embrace only his refelection, which is of course, intangible.