Artibus et Historiae no. 10 (V)
1984, ISSN 0391-9064Up
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MILLY HEYD - Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus Reconsidered
The article deals with Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus in a new light tracing its novelty by comparing it to both previous pictures and literary sources. Both Dali's picture and poem were influenced by alchemical sources. Various sources for the egg are found in Maierus' Atalanta Fugiens, 1618, as well as for other elements such as the hermaphrodite. The article also relates the themes to Dali's autobiography: both to his brother's death and his own cure through Gala. The opening of the head from which the flower sprouts is shown to be a continuation of therapy. A seventeenth century tradition of cure (Bosch's Cure of Folly) seems to have been in the background to Dali's version. It is both in the picture and in the poem that the alchemical and the autobiographical meet.
