Aggravating painting As I viewed the four paintings the Aggravating painting stood out to be the best in portraying the story of Narcissus. I chose this painting mainly because of the clear image we are given of the boy dwelling over his beautiful reflection coming from the water. Aggravating shows great contrast in this painting showing off the boys pale skin and silky hair which is seen to be attracting. The image itself is very simple. Aggravating did not include too many distractions leaving only the boy at the center of the image.
This catches the viewer’s attention quickly so they can tie in the image to the story. The second image that best fits the story would be the image drawn by Waterholes. In this image he has Narcissus lies on his stomach looking at his reflection in the water. What I liked the most about this image is the artist chose to add color which brought out more emotion in the painting itself. Waterholes chose to place Echo nearby showing off her left breast as she is mesmerism’s by Narcissus. The choice of coloring is also appropriate as Waterholes uses the color red signifying he love Echo had for Narcissus.
The third image that I thought fit the story best is from the artist Poisson. In this Image there is no water or any type of reflection of Narcissus. Instead Narcissus is lying on the ground as he seems to be dead, while Echo is resting on a rock watching him passionately as she grieves over his death. I’m not so sure who the baby in this image is but I know that the flower besides Narcissus stands for the reincarnation of Narcissus after his death. The last image does that fit in describing the story of Narcissus.
The image doesn’t come off to the viewer as an easy image to summarize. I thought of the image more as a metaphor to the story of Narcissus. In the image there are two reflections of what seems to be a hand holding up an egg. In the left hand side everything is dark and the egg has flower coming out which seems to be dead. In the right hand side the flower from the egg seems to be healthy and alive. This resembles Narcissus because after he died he turned into a beautiful flower which was brought back into the light. Aggravating painting By Deane_23