Why it matters
A youth in a brocade doublet leans over the water to gaze at his own reflection, locked in a circle with it and surrounded by darkness. Alberti had called Narcissus the inventor of painting: 'What is painting but the act of embracing by means of art the surface of the pool?'
Did you know?
- It was painted around 1597–1599.
- Roberto Longhi first attributed it to Caravaggio in 1916.
- The story comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Based on the Wikipedia article Narcissus (Caravaggio) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
