Caravaggio, Narcissus at the Source, 1597-99

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Narcissus at the Source, oil on canvas, 1597-99 (Palazzo Barbarini)

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

We are in the Palazzo Barberini

looking at a painting by Caravaggio,

called Narcissus at the Source. This is the title.

And this is the story from Ovid of a boy

who falls in love with his own reflection in the water

so much that he falls in and drowns.

Of course there is a flower named after him as is the word Narcissism.

In a Christian context it is a morality tale, a caution, about

what is important and what is not important. But it is an extraordinarily interesting subject for a painter,

That's true, especially because you get the reality of the figure and the reflection. Of course paintings

themselves are sort of mirrors or reflections . They certainly are and the idea of the artist's responsibility in terms of depiction,

in terms of creating a faithfulness

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

painting,is a dimmer image, much dimmer,and it is really only the highlights that come forward. The painting

is also incredibly abstract. The surface of the water,

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

the hands that are touching and the arms, and the circular form inscribed within the rectangle of the canvas.

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

the painter had to think about how he was painting the so-called reality, the real figure versus the reflection

of the real figure and painting itself is a reflection itself. The other thing is the foreshortening of the

figure itself leans out toward us with a kind of longing. All of those very Baroque elements of really moving into

the space of the viewer are here and that tenebrosso , the dark background really makes us focus on the figure that fills

the shape of the canvas. The thing that is really vivid is the knee and also the shirt sleeve. Often the thing that

draws our attention is not to the thing that you think in realism

Whereas in reality the thing that you might look at or have the thing that light falls on is not necessarily the most

important thing in the room. I want to look at his left hand on the right side of the canvas. Lets take

a close look. What seems to be happening is his right hand on the left side seems to be firmly planted on

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

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.

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.