Fallax Imago: Ovid's Narcissus and the seduction of mimesis in Roman wall painting

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University. The author is grateful for the helpful comments offered by her colleagues on each of these occasions. She would also like to thank Bettina Bergmann, Richard Brilliant, Patrick Crowley, Natalie Kampen, Barbara Kellum, Giancarla Periti, and Mitchell Merback for their invaluable suggestions as she worked through different iterations of this article. John Dixon Hunt and an anonymous reader offered much valued guidance in the final stages of composition. The author's husband, Michael Sullivan, helped refine her translations of Ovid and provided his own elegant version of Valerius Maximus's prose, for which she is deeply grateful. Without his love, support, and editorial acumen, this essay would have remained an elusive, undisciplined idea. Notes 1 – Despite their evocative names, very little is actually known about the owners of the House of Octavius Quartio and the House of Lucretius Fronto. The current attribution of House II.2.2 in Pompeii to Octavius Quartio is based on a bronze seal bearing the name 'D. Octavius Quartio,' which was found in the potter's shop at the front of the house. Previously, this same house had been referred to as the House of Loreius Tiburtinus. But the name Loreius Tiburtinus is now known to have been an invention of the archaeologist Matteo Della Corte. Lauren Petersen has pointed out that 'attribution based on a single bronze seal is equally problematic; a portable object, the seal does not in and of itself identify the owner of the house so much as it may reveal the name of someone who frequented the shop, whether as a worker, an owner, or a customer.' See Lauren Petersen, The Freedman in Roman Art History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 135. On the owner of House II.2.2, see also Pompei: Pitture e Mosaici 3, ed. Giovanni C. Pugliese and Ida Baldassare (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1990–2003), p. 42; John Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C. – 250 A.D.: Ritual, Space and Decoration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 193–94; Matteo Della Corte, 'I M. M. Lorei Tiburtini di Pompei,' Atti e memorie della società tiburtina di storia e d'arte, 11–12 (1931–2), pp. 196–200; Matteo Della Corte, Case ed abitanti di Pompei (Naples: Faustino Fiorentino, 1965), pp. 308–10; Vittorio Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce degli nuovi scavi di Via dell'Abbondanza (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1953), pp. 369 ff. The attribution of House V.4.a to Marcus Lucretius Fronto is also not without its problems. The name for this house's putative owner is taken primarily from a number of electoral graffiti painted on the house's façade (CIL (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum) IV 6613, 6625–26, 6633), which recommend him for the office of municipal aedile. The Lucretii are a well-documented aristocratic Pompeian family. Yet House V.4.a seems somewhat modest for someone of elevated rank. A number of explanations for this apparent discrepancy have been proposed by scholars: either the house belonged to someone attached to the Lucretii, or this was but one of several properties owned by Marcus Lucretius Fronto, whose social status and political ambitions are attested by several inscriptions. For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see Pompei: Pitture e Mosaici 3, pp. 966–67; Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, pp. 158–59; Wilhelmus J.T. Peters, La casa di Marcus Lucretius Fronto a Pompei e le sue pitture (Amsterdam: Thesis Publishers, 1993), pp. 409, 411–12. 2 – Roger Ling, 'The Decoration of Roman Triclinia,' in In Vino Veritas, ed. Oswyn Murray and Manuela Tecusan (London: British School at Rome, 1995), pp. 239–51. For catalogs of Roman paintings of Narcissus and the popularity of this subject in the first century CE, see Lilian Balensiefen, Die Bedeutung des Spiegelbildes als ikonographisches Motiv in der antiken Kunst (Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1990), pp. 130–66; Isabella Colpo, '…Quod non alter et alter eras. Dinamiche figurative nel repertorio di Narciso in area vesuviana,' Antenor, 5 (2006), pp. 57–91; Katharina Lorenz, Bilder machen Räume. Mythenbilder in pompeianischen Häusern (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 189–92; Birgitte Rafn, 'Narkissos,' in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 6 (Zurich and Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1992), pp. 703–11; and Karl Schefold, Die Wände Pompejis; topographisches Verzeichnis der Bildmotive (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1957), p. 137. On the dates of Campanian paintings of Narcissus, see (in addition to Balensiefen, Colpo, and Schefold), Irene Bragantini, 'Problemi di pittura romana,' Annali di archeologia e storia antica 2 (1995), pp. 175–97, especially pp. 192–96; and Peters, La casa di Marcus Lucretius Fronto, pp. 333, 372–79. These scholars agree that Pompeian paintings of Narcissus all belong to the Fourth Style and must be dated to after 62 CE. 3 – On the Hellenistic Tanagra figurine, see Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie 3 (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1897–1909), p. 17. Balensiefen sees the identification of this Tanagra figurine with Narcissus as uncertain (Die Bedeutung, 51f., n. 224). In the first century CE, representations of Narcissus in media other than painting appear to be the exception: two examples are a carnelian ring stone dated to the Augustan era (Paris, Cab. Méd. 1615bis), but considered a forgery by Adolf Furtwängler, and a stucco relief from Villa Petraro, Castellammare di Stabia (Antiquarium 140/1102). On the Augustan gem, see Adolf Furtwängler, Die antiken Gemmen. Geschichte der Steinschneidekunst im klassischen Altertum (Leipzig and Berlin: Giesecke & Devrient, 1900), Plate 42, p. 14; Rafn, 'Narkissos,' p. 708; Paul Zanker, 'Iste ego sum. Der naïve und der bewusste Narziss,' Bonner Jahrbücher 166 (1966), p. 152–70. On the relief from Villa Petraro, see Harald Mielsch, Römische Stuckreliefs (Heidelberg: Kerle, 1975), pp. 45–56, 129, K 34, 1, plate 28, 1; Rafn, 'Narkissos,' p. 706; and Anna Maria Sodo, 'Villa Petraro,' in In Stabiano: Exploring the Ancient Seaside Villas of the Roman Elite (Castellammare di Stabia: Nicola Longobardi, 2004), p. 67–70. On pictorial representations of Narcissus as an exclusively Roman phenomenon, see Isabella Colpo, Gian Luca Grassigli, and Fabio Minotti, 'Le ragioni di una scelta. Discutendo attorno alle immagini di Narciso a Pompei,' Eidola 4 (2007), p. 73–118. 4 – For the date of Ovid's Metamorphoses, see Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History, trans. Joseph B. Solodow (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 341. For the originality of Ovid's version of the myth of Narcissus, see Ovidio, Metamorfosi II (Libri III–IV), ed. Alessandro Barchiesi (Rome: A. Mondadori, 2007), pp. 175–83; Maurizio Bettini and Ezio Pellizer, Il mito di Narciso: immagini e racconti dalla Grecia a oggi (Turin: G. Einaudi, 2003), pp. 41–114; Luigi Castiglioni, Studi intorno alle fonti e alla composizione delle Metamorfosi di Ovidio (Rome: 'L'Erma' di Bretschneider, 1964), pp. 207–54; Gianpiero Rosati, Narciso e Pigmalione: illusione e spettacolo nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio (Florence: Sansoni 1983); Louise Vinge, The Narcissus Theme in Western European Literature up to the Early 19th Century (Lund: Gleerups, 1967). A possible contemporary work, the Diegesis of Konon, a Greek author thought to have lived during the reign of Augustus (31 BCE–14 CE), contains only a synoptic account of the tale of Narcissus. Although Ovid's and Konon's versions of the story have several points in common, it is possible that both drew their material from earlier anthologies of transformation myths without ever knowing of each other's work. See Malcolm Kenneth Brown, The Narratives of Konon (Munich: Saur, 2002), pp. 1–6, 173. For a different view see Bernd Manuwald, 'Narcissus bei Konon und Ovid,' Hermes 103 (1975), p. 349–72, n.12, according to whom Ovid knew Konon's work. A recently discovered papyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy.4711) points to another possible pre-Ovidian source for the myth of Narcissus. This rediscovered fragmentary poem has been attributed to Parthenius of Nicaea (fl. mid-first century BCE). See Gregory O. Hutchinson, 'The Metamorphosis of Metamorphosis: P.Oxy.4711 and Ovid,' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 155 (2006), pp. 71–84. Hutchinson finds that '[c]onsideration of the specific stories in the papyrus … shows how Ovid's overt structuring and implicit interconnections [in the Metamorphoses] would have been more striking for readers … who had read this poem' (p. 77). 5 – Cf. Aristotle, Poetics 4.1448b4–19, where mimesis, in the case of images, is said to offer viewers two related pleasures: one which derives from an appreciation of the artist's skills, and another from reasoning and understanding each represented element. See also Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 177–206. For a more detailed discussion of definitions of mimesis in the Roman period, see below, section II. 6 – Cf. Stephen Hinds, 'Landscape with Figures: Aesthetics of Place in the Metamorphoses and its Tradition,' in The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. Philip Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 122–49. The locus classicus for Narcissus as the inventor of painting is, of course, Leon Battista Alberti's Della Pittura 3.25–26. See also Jas Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 132–33; David Summers, Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), pp. 144–49; and Victor I. Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow, trans. Anne-Marie Glasheen (London: Reaktion Books, 1997), pp. 29–41. Alberti's allegorization of the Narcissus myth is typical of Renaissance classicism: although not true to the letter of his classical sources, it is true to their spirit. On Alberti's classicism, see Cristelle Baskins, 'Echoing Narcissus in Alberti's Della Pittura,' Oxford Art Journal 16 (1993), pp. 25–33; Kenneth Clark, 'Leon Battista Alberti on Painting,' Proceedings of the British Academy 30 (1945), pp. 1–20. 7 – For instance, Elsner in Roman Eyes (pp. 132–76), mentions Ovid briefly, but focuses mostly on the ekphrases of Narcissus by Philostratus and Callistratus, dated to more than a century after the Pompeian wall paintings that constitute the core of his study. In The Moral Mirror of Roman Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Rabun Taylor pays closer attention to Ovid, but discusses Pompeian paintings of Narcissus with little regard for their original context (pp. 56–70). Among recent studies of Pompeian paintings of Narcissus, Lorenz's Bilder machen Räume (see note 2) and Verity Platt's article, 'Viewing, Desiring, Believing: Confronting the Divine in a Pompeian House,' Art History 24 (2002), pp. 87–112, offer the most detailed discussions of pictorial ensembles. Platt's approach, however, is greatly influenced by the writings of Jacques Lacan, which are an anachronistic, albeit provocative framework for the understanding of Roman wall painting. 8 – Cf. Barbara Kellum, 'Review of Jas Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text,' Art Bulletin 91 (2009), pp. 107–11. 9 – Cf. Michael Baxandall, 'Pictures and Ideas: Chardin's A Lady Taking Tea,' in Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 74–104. On points of contact between Ovid's account of Narcissus and Campanian representations of this myth, see Colpo et al., 'Le ragioni di una scelta,' pp. 88–89. On the diffusion and reception of Latin poetry in Pompeii, see Marcello Gigante, Civiltà delle forme letterarie nell'antica Pompei (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1979). Scholars have long believed the Aeneid became a 'school text' soon after its publication in 19 B.C.E. See Gigante, Civiltà delle forme letterarie, pp. 170, 176ff. For a more recent and nuanced interpretation of Virgilian quotations in Pompeian graffiti, see Kristina Milnor, 'Literary Literacy in Roman Pompeii: The Case of Vergil's Aeneid,' in Ancient Literacies: the Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome, ed. William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 288–319. After Virgil's poems, Ovid's verses are the most commonly reproduced in Pompeian graffiti. Ovid himself, in his letters from exile, boasts that his poems were more popular at public recitations than those of his rivals (Tristia 2.519; 5.7b,1–4). For a discussion of Pompeian graffiti related to love poems see Gigante, Civiltà delle forme letterarie, pp. 71–74, 185–94, 203–22; Milnor, 'Literary Literacy,' pp. 299–302; Antonio Varone, Erotica pompeiana: iscrizioni d'amore sui muri di Pompei (Rome: 'L'Erma' di Bretschneider, 1994). 10 – See, for instance, Lawrence Richardson Jr, A Catalog of Identifiable Figure Painters of Ancient Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), especially his comments on the painting of Narcissus in the House of Octavius Quartio, p. 147. 11 – On relationships between wall paintings, architecture, and mnemonic activities in Roman domestic spaces, see Richard Brilliant, Visual Narratives: Storytelling in Etruscan and Roman Art (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 53–89; Bettina Bergmann, 'The Roman House as Memory Theater: The House of the Tragic Poet in Pompei,' Art Bulletin 76 (1994), pp. 225–56; Bettina Bergmann, 'The Pregnant Moment: Tragic Wives in the Roman Interior,' in Sexuality in Ancient Art, ed. Natalie B. Kampen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 199–218; and Bettina Bergmann, 'Rhythms of Recognition: Mythological Encounters in Roman Landscape Painting,' in Im Spiegel des Mythos. Bilderwelt und Lebenswelt/ Lo specchio del mito. Immaginario e realtà (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1999), pp. 81–108. See also Mary Lee Thompson, 'The Monumental and Literary Evidence for Programmatic Painting in Antiquity,' Marsyas 9 (1961), pp. 36–77, and Karl Schefold, La peinture pompéienne: Essai sur l'évolution de sa signification, trans. J.-M. Croisille (Brussels: Latomus, 1972). 12 – Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Latin texts are my own. On the meaning of imago, see Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. imago. The insubstantiality of Narcissus's reflection is further emphasized by the term umbra ('shadow,' Met. 3.417). In some manuscripts of the Metamorphoses, unda (water) appears instead of umbra (shadow). But as Alessandro Barchiesi and Gianpiero Rosati have argued, umbra is a significant variant that deserves serious consideration as a more sophisticated term for 'reflection.' Umbra in Latin also evokes the Greek word skia, which is equally rich in semantic possibilities, ranging from 'shadow' to 'infernal specter' (see Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi II (Libri III–IV ), 194–95. See also Philip Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 156–58. 13 – Cf. Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion, pp. 173–74; Rosati, Narciso e Pigmalione, pp. 129–52. On key aspects of ekphrasis as a literary genre, see Paul Friedländer, Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentarius: Kunstbeschreibungen justinianischer Zeit (Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1912), pp. 1–31; Jas Elsner, 'Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis,' Ramus 31 (2002), pp. 1–18; and Ancient and The of a & pp. On the of in see Jas Elsner, and the of the of in Sexuality in Ancient Art pp. Roman pp. and 'The as a and in de et ed. and de 2006), pp. – the in Met. and the of in Met. Ovid a reflection through – Cf. Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi pp. Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion, p. Hinds, 'Landscape with p. 137. On the status of the as examples of mimesis, see Aristotle, Poetics For a discussion of this and further in the Poetics where mimesis as for the of mimesis as a see Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of p. ff. 16 – On the ekphrasis of the on in in Aeneid 1, see 'The Pictures on 10 pp. Alessandro Barchiesi, del e und (1994), pp. Michael Virgil's in the Aeneid (New Yale University Press, pp. Jas Elsner, and Text,' in A Companion to Latin ed. Stephen (Oxford: pp. On ekphrasis in more see and The of Ekphrasis,' Journal of Roman pp. – For the of the as a of of see 'The as a in in in Latin ed. and (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. – In a recent of the for a of and viewers in work. to readers are to between in the of and the author's for and See and in in ed. and Jas Elsner and Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 19 – The … umbra of a Met. Ovid's earlier of … the of a Met. In both Narcissus and for For the between the of and in the of see See also Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi p. Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion, pp. – On Ovid's of Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi p. – Cf. where a between and is both to the and to the that it is an image or she See also Elsner, and the of the pp. Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion, pp. Narcissus's that it is is one of Ovid's most significant In of the earlier versions of this myth does Narcissus that and his are See Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi pp. Vinge, The Narcissus pp. Zanker, 'Iste ego p. – Narcissus's of in Met. is an of his his at the that it is ego to earlier of his at the Met. … of a Met. … of a and Met. … – Cf. Hardie, Ovid's Poetics of Illusion, p. and Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow, p. 24 – Cf. and pp. 'The as a pp. Elsner, and the of the pp. – On History see Stephen The On Visual and the Western (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. and The of the (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 'The and the of in Art and Text in Roman ed. Jas Elsner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. – The of Narcissus's is by the that is the first to in love in Ovid's Barchiesi that love for and Narcissus's love for his own reflection with several of Latin the between love and the to of and and in the Metamorfosi p. – For and See also 'The as a pp. The Mirror of the and the in the Early Roman University of Press, 2006), pp. – Richard from p. – Hinds, 'Landscape with p. 'Viewing, Desiring, p. On the wall paintings in the House of Octavius Quartio, see also Pompei: Pitture e Mosaici 3, pp. Clarke, The Houses of Roman Italy, pp. Lorenz, Bilder machen pp. 30 – The locus as a literary in the first century to the century on are of especially the of of a different which to according to are that love and See John on the of A and Study of the Villas and their B.C. to Harvard University Press, p. Hinds, 'Landscape with pp. 147. 31 – On the date of Roman representations of and see Ida e mito in de et (Rome: de Rome, pp. de et in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 7 (Zurich and Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1994), pp. On and in Roman see in 1 pp. W. of the myth in Campanian des Römische pp. and in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 2 pp. – 'The Roman and the in The ed. John Hunt of Art, 1992), p. was greatly influenced by Paul interpretation of Campanian as of See Paul Zanker, Villa als des des pp. and as Pompeii: and trans. Harvard University Press, pp. For a of Zanker, see Petersen, The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History, pp. – On Roman and the of see The Roman of (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. On Roman and see also John Clarke, Art in the of Visual and in Italy, 100 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. and in Ancient and (Princeton: Princeton University Press, – On the and of in Ovid's see Landscape in Ovid's A Study in the of a Literary (Wiesbaden: Verlag, and Hinds, 'Landscape with pp. – On Ovid's account of the tale of and see Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi pp. – Brilliant, Visual pp. Bergmann, 'The Roman House as Memory pp. – On paintings in Pompeian and their of Hellenistic see The of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas by (New pp. See also Lorenz, Bilder machen pp. The on the wall of the was and by several that the These a the of a in its a an to and a a See The of Pompeii, pp. Clarke, Houses of Roman Italy, p. In the House of Octavius Quartio, the of a on the wall was with an image of the with his The wall also a painting of on a which both attention to the and the of the pictorial On the paintings of the wall of the see Pompei: Pitture e Mosaici 3, p. – Cf. Elsner, Roman p. – is the Greek term to the in a In classical are represented as in their On Narcissus as an see Colpo et al., 'Le ragioni di una scelta,' pp. Spiegel des Die Bedeutung für in pittura IV del pittura antica 1995), ed. University Press, 1997), pp. The Moral Mirror of Roman Art, pp. On Roman see The Mirror of the pp. Roman of in (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. to Greek 31 pp. On representations of in the Roman period, see of in Roman in The Ancient Art of in and from the to ed. University of Press, 2002), pp. David in The of and in Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. and University of Press, 2002), pp. – Cf. 'Viewing, Desiring, pp. – On the myth of and in Ovid's Metamorphoses see Barchiesi, Ovidio, Metamorfosi pp. – A in History appears to a of by that in one of the of the of in This is thought to have been the for the Roman after this now known as the See and and the The of (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. On the between the painting of on the of the House of Octavius Quartio and the see 'Viewing, Desiring, p. and Lorenz, Bilder machen p. – On the paintings in see Pompeii: Pitture e Mosaici 3, pp. Clarke, Houses of Roman Italy, pp. Elsner, Roman p. Peters, La casa di Marcus Lucretius Fronto, pp. On painting see W. to of the Academy in Rome, pp. Karl 'The of the Art pp. Bettina Bergmann, and Roman Harvard in (1995), pp.