Ovid's Metamorphoses and the popularity of Narcissus wall paintings in the Roman Imperial Period

While reading a research paper on interpretations of Roman wall paintings of Narcissus, I learned forty different paintings of Narcissus have been found in the Campanian region testifying to the popularity and influence of the publication of Ovid's Metamorphoses during the Imperial Period. The article also included an image of the painting from the House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto and it is shown enclosed within a frame and facing the opposite direction from the photograph of the painting presented by pompeiiinpictures.com in my earlier post about the frescos of the House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto in Pompeii.

Image of the fresco of Narcissus from the House of
Marcus Lucretius Fronto in Pompeii provided by Scala Art Resource

The Scala Art Resource image was apparently inadvertently reversed when reproduced, though, because I found a new photograph on pompeiiinpictures.com taken just this year after the extensive restoration work completed in January 2023.

House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto Pompeii 2023. Room ‘i’, north wall of cubiculum, detail of Narcissus courtesy of Johannes Eber

Here is a translation of a portion of Ovid's retelling of the Narcissus myth:

"He is astonished at himself and, perfectly still, with unchanging expression, is transfixed, as if he were a statue carved of Parian marble. Lying on the ground, he gazes at his eyes, twin stars, his curls, worthy of Bacchus and even of Apollo, his beardless cheeks, his ivory neck, the beauty of his face, and his blush, mixed with snowy whiteness. He wonders at all that makes him wondrous: without knowing, he desires himself and he who praises is himself praised. While he seeks, he is sought, and equally inflames and burns with love." (Met. 3.418–26) - Hérica Valladares, Fallax Imago: Ovid's Narcissus and the seduction of mimesis in Roman wall painting.

Valladares concludes, "Ovid's poem and first century wall paintings of Narcissus postulate and enact an affective relationship between viewer and image that is best described in erotic, amatory terms. As in the Metamorphoses, Campanian representations of Narcissus depict a prolonged, almost indefinite moment of inaction, in which narrative is supplanted by a direct appeal to the senses and the emotions. Central to these games of poetic and pictorial illusion is an analogy between the viewer/reader and the depicted lover, whose elusive object of desire becomes a metaphor for one's sense of reality. What we find, then, in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Pompeian images of Narcissus is an instigation to believe in and also see through the mechanisms of illusion."

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