Salvador Dali: Metamorphosis of Narcissus

Metamorphosis of Narcissus is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali.In 1930s, Salvador Dali developed a surrealist technique called paranoiac-critical method. His artworks with this technique involved optical illusions and other multiple images in order to invoke a fear that self is being targeted and manipulated by other elements. The aspect of paranoia that Dali was interested in was the ability of the brain to perceive links between things which were not linked rationally. Dali described the paranoiac-critical method as a "spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena." This painting is Dalí's interpretation of the Greek myth of Narcissus. Narcissus was a youth of great beauty who loved only himself and broke the hearts of many lovers. The gods punished him by letting him see his own reflection in a pool. He fell in love with it, but discovered he could not embrace it and died of frustration. Relenting, the gods immortalized him as the narcissus (daffodil) flower.

Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali

The first scene is in the bottom left corner, it’s an enlarged shape of a man with his head resting on his knee. The man is crouched in the water with his reflection shining back from a pool of water. The next scene is to the bottom right of the first. In the middle there is another form with the shape of the man but this one appears to be a stone hand that is holding an egg. The egg is cracked with a white flower growing out of it. The crack from which the flower is growing also functions as the shadow of the flower. This shows the use of optical illusions in Dali's paintings. The shape of Narcissus' body overlaps that of the hand. This was done to create mirror effect to dis-balance one's natural perception. Behind the hand there is a fire that has gone out so there is a smoking fire pit. There are also two types of animals in this scene, one is some ants that are crawling up the thumb to the egg and the other is a dog that is at the right of the hand eating some sort of bloody meat. The ants represent decay. On the right behind the figure of the man are a group of women gathered on a dirt road. All the women are naked and some seem to be weeping, while others are dancing. The last scene is behind the stone hand. There is a statue that is standing on a pedestal in the middle of a chess board. The single piece on chess board denotes that no matter how handsome Narcissus might think he was but in reality he was just a solitary man caged in his own delusional game. These four parts make this painting very interesting with different layers and emotions.

This painting showcased Dali's ability to see things simultaneously as more than one thing as a result of the psychological state called paranoiac-critical activity. Famous Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud gave a theory that there were filters in mind/brain that kept the conscious and unconscious brain apart. But, Dali claimed that in the state of paranoiac-critical activity he could embrace both the conscious and unconscious sides of his brain. Thus, this painting was born due to the intercourse between rationality and irrationality. Dali's paintings impress me like none other because they are not only artistic in nature but deploy natural sciences with shit ton of psychology too. In Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Dali basically brought a tragic philosophical moralistic story alive on a canvas and then seamlessly added tons of optical illusory effects to boggle viewer's perception of colors, shape and form. This whole interpretation of this painting can be very wrong. In Dali's case whenever you think you are looking at things correctly, you are almost certain to be wrong.