Nicolas PoussinFrancia, 1594–1665¿Se puede contemplar?
París, Francia
Se sabe quién es el propietario. Si hoy está expuesta, el museo no lo dice, y a adivinar no nos enseñaron.
(en francés, Écho et Narcisse) es un cuadro del pintor francés Nicolas Poussin. Está realizado al óleo sobre lienzo. Mide 74 cm de alto y 100 cm de ancho. Fue pintado en 1627 y 1628. Se encuentra en el Museo del Louvre, en París (Francia).
La obra pertenece al género mitológico. Según Las metamorfosis de Ovidio, la ninfa Eco se enamoró de Narciso, pero éste la rechazó. Por eso ella, desolada, se ocultó en una cueva y se consumió de dolor, hasta quedar solamente su voz.
Némesis, la diosa de la venganza, castigó a Narciso haciendo que se enamorara de su propia imagen reflejada en un gran lago, consumiéndose de amor hacia sí mismo.
Allí donde murió, brotó la flor azafranada que lleva su nombre: Narcissus.
Poussin refleja esta leyenda situando a tres personajes en un paisaje idílico: en primer término, Narciso, detrás Eros y sentada sobre una roca, Eco. De la cabeza del joven Narciso están brotando ya los narcisos. Eco, recostada sobre una roca, resulta «una aparición elegíaca e inmaterial».
La de Eco y Narciso es una historia que inspiró la ópera homónima de Gluck.
1620s
The Cavaliere Marino takes the painter under his wing
Poussin’s work caught the attention of the Italian poet Cavaliere Marino, then living in France; his patronage let the thirty-year-old painter work in peace. According to Bellori the poet took him into his house and helped him with the invention of subjects and the rendering of emotion, and in Marino’s house Poussin gained access to a library with treatises by Alberti and Dürer and manuscripts and drawings by Leonardo.
c. 1629
A grave illness: the Dughet family nurses Poussin
Around 1629 Poussin fell gravely ill and was nursed by the family of the French pastry-cook Dughet; on recovering he became engaged to the eldest daughter, Anne-Marie. The wedding in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina took place on 1 September 1630.
1630
Gives up monumental commissions
In 1630 the commission headed by Domenichino and d’Arpino gave the decoration of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception in San Luigi dei Francesi to the Lorrainer Charles Mellin, not to Poussin. After that he firmly renounced the monumental genre and turned to “cabinet painting” for private patrons.
1630
Patron: Cardinal Camillo Massimo
Thanks to his earlier patrons, Cassiano dal Pozzo and Giulio Rospigliosi, in 1630 Poussin gained a powerful patron in Cardinal Camillo Massimo: the cardinal visited him in his studio after a serious illness, and the painter gave him a self-portrait drawing with a dedication. They worked together until Poussin left for Paris in 1640.
9 de agosto de 1630
Married: Anne-Marie Dughet
1630s
Cassiano dal Pozzo — his chief patron
Poussin’s flowering coincided with his complete abandonment of church commissions: he gathered a circle of patrons around him but strove for independence, accepting commissions from connoisseurs without binding himself to any of them permanently. The most important was Cassiano dal Pozzo; in the surviving correspondence the relationship comes close to servitude, although the painter did not live in his house.