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- Title
From Narcissus to Narcosis.
- Authors
Berger, Susanna
- Abstract
This essay examines the Narcissus (c. 1599–1620) that has been attributed to Caravaggio through the lens of cultural history before exploiting a methodology that understands Caravaggio's paintings and those of his followers as works that thematize their own fictiveness. I move beyond this method by thinking about how such self‐aware paintings could likewise thematize the potential fictiveness of visual experience. In so doing, I examine scientific medicine prevalent in Caravaggio's age to explain the ambiguities, dislocations, and shifting identities raised in part by a reading of the canvas's self‐reflexivity and to shed light on its sensual power. I argue that this painting shows Narcissus's own narcotic‐induced hallucination and could have cued a similar response in the painting's early modern beholders. The Narcissus both portrays a physical and emotional malaise and functioned as an instrument for alleviating it in the observer, first through an amplification of symptoms and then by opening a speculative route.
- Subjects
CARAVAGGIO, Michelangelo Merisi da, 1573-1610; NARCISSUS (Greek mythology) in art; ATTRIBUTION of art; CULTURAL history; SELF (Philosophy) in art; ART history -- 17th century
- Publication
Art History, 2020, Vol 43, Issue 3, p612
- ISSN
0141-6790
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-8365.12470