One of the early works of K. Bryullov, written while studying at the Academy of Arts. In 1819, in the class of Andrei Ivanov, the male figure of a half-lying young man leaning over the water was “set” as a task for the painters.
In the custom of the Academy there were such thematic productions: the model, who fell on his back, portrayed himself as the murdered Abel or Icarus, who had crashed in the fall, and the like. The sitter, probably, the teacher suggested to treat as Narcissa, looking in the water. But Bryullov was not satisfied with what he saw and was able to portray at the Academy.
Deciding to portray the figure of Narcissus surrounded by a landscape, he went to the Stroganov garden on the Black River, and his imagination inhabited the thick undergrowth of the garden with mythological images, the artist’s eyes noticed a multitude of living details: the sun’s rays piercing through the foliage, a leaf falling on the surface of water and sharply denoting its smooth surface.
The academic sketch from the sitter turned into a complete picture of “Narcissus”. This work already contained the theme of human and nature communication, a topic that became one of the main in the artist’s work. For this work K. Bryullov was awarded the second gold medal of the Academy of Arts.
Look, Narcissus’s head somehow suspiciously resembles the features of Briullov himself, well-known for his numerous self-portraits. Self-portrait in the form of Narcissus! What is this – a guess about yourself, an indication of the character trait, which he knows for himself, and a warning to himself: “sow a character – reap a destiny”?
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