From Narcissus to Narcosis

This essay examines the Narcissus ( c . 1599–1620) that has been attributed to Caravaggio through the lens of cultural history before exploiting a methodology that understands Caravaggio's paintings and those of his followers as works that thematize their own fictiveness. I move beyond this method by thinking about how such self‐aware paintings could likewise thematize the potential fictiveness of visual experience. In so doing, I examine scientific medicine prevalent in Caravaggio's age to explain the ambiguities, dislocations, and shifting identities raised in part by a reading of the canvas's self‐reflexivity and to shed light on its sensual power. I argue that this painting shows Narcissus's own narcotic‐induced hallucination and could have cued a similar response in the painting's early modern beholders. The Narcissus both portrays a physical and emotional malaise and functioned as an instrument for alleviating it in the observer, first through an amplification of symptoms and then by opening a speculative route.