Salvador Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus


Salvador Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937, oil on canvas, 51.1 x 78.1 cm (Tate Modern, London)

The ancient source of this subject is Ovid’s Metamorphosis (Book 3, lines 339-507). It tells of Narcissus, who upon seeing his own image reflected in a pool, so falls in love that he cannot look away. Eventually he vanishes and in his place is a “sweet flower, gold and white, the white around the gold.”

Dalí’s poem, below, accompanied the painting when it was initially exhibited:

Narcissus,
in his immobility,
absorbed by his reflection with the digestive slowness of carnivorous plants,
becomes invisible.
There remains of him only the hallucinatingly white oval of his head,
his head again more tender,
his head, chrysalis of hidden biological designs,
his head held up by the tips of the water’s fingers,
at the tips of the fingers
of the insensate hand,
of the terrible hand,
of the mortal hand
of his own reflection.
When that head slits
when that head splits
when that head bursts,
it will be the flower,
the new Narcissus,
Gala – my Narcissus.


Smarthistory images for teaching and learning:

[flickr_tags user_id=”82032880@N00″ tags=”Metamorphosis of Narcissus,”]

More Smarthistory images…

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Salvador Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus," in Smarthistory, November 27, 2015, accessed March 19, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/salvador-dali-metamorphosis-of-narcissus/.