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Salvador Dalí and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus:Doubling as Method to Unify
Menduni De Rossi, Rosanna
Menduni De Rossi, Rosanna
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Abstract
In Greek mythology Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and of the nymphLirope. His story was narrated by the Roman poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses. Narcissus was ayoung man of great beauty who was punished by the Gods because of his boundless self-love. TheSpanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí interpreted the myth in his celebrated 1937 oil on canvas,Metamorphosis of Narcissus, in which he adopted and for the first time explored, the so-called“paranoid-critical method.” In conjunction with this painting, Dalí wrote an eponymous poem,composed to amplify the effect and meaning of the visual work. The poem focuses on how thecharacter of Dalí-Narcissus “loses his being in the cosmic vertigo”1 only to be reborn as Gala (hismuse and lover). In Metamorphosis of Narcissus Dalí used a meticulous technique which hedescribed as “hand-painted color photography” that creates a hallucinatory effect in the two figuresrepresenting Narcissus, creating a complex and multilayered reading of the work made of visualelements that lead into an oneiric dimension in contrast, and in relation, to a mythological andpsychological one. Although Dalí often used “double images,” the Metamorphosis of Narcissusdiffers from his usual practice because rather than seeing multiple images hidden in one figure, thesubject itself is presented doubled. The artist linked the classical tradition of Greek mythology withthe latest investigations in science, and in doing so he shed new light not only on the myth ofNarcissus but on psychoanalysis, too. By exploring and analyzing Dalí’s fascination with “opticalillusions”, with symbolism and with pivotal life episodes, this thesis explores how the painting wasintended to be viewed and interpreted iconographically, how it related to Freud’s theories and howit opens up a point of view on the same idea of the double meant as Dali’s alter-ego. Gala become aleading figure in this analysis which allows us to consider Gala the “muse”, Gala the “lover”, as anecessary and essential puppeteer. The same concept of love will be linked to the concept of thedouble and to Dali’s “paranoid-critical method.” This will lead us to consider, firstly, Dalí’s ownpersonal interpretation of the myth of love (love for the self, love for the other, love as afundamental abstraction) analyzed through the prism of André Breton’s Amour Fou and Jenson’sGradiva; and secondly, the figure of Gala herself, together with the role and symbolism of muses inthat historical context.
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Thesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Fall 2022.
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2022
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Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989
Citation
Menduni De Rossi, Rosanna. "Salvador Dalí and The Metamorphosis of Narcissus:Doubling as Method to Unify". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2022.