Dalí’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus – a Break with the Classical Tradition or Ovid’s Story Retold in an Ingenious Way?

Abstract

The article proposes a reconsideration of the Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dalí which focuses on the issue of the relationship between Dalí’s treatment of the theme and the myth of Narcissus as depicted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although at first glance, the revolutionary surrealist painting owes little to the story of the beautiful Boeotian youth as presented by Ovid, the iconographical analysis nevertheless reveals Dalí’s profound interest in Metamorphoses. Using the paranoiac-critical method Dalí creates an original visual interpretation of metamorphosis based on Ovid’s description of Narcissus’ death with details that are lacking in other classical (or later) sources.