Claude, 'Landscape with Narcissus and Echo', 1644

Claude painted many landscapes depicting religious or mythological stories. Here, he takes the subject from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a Latin poem of well-known stories and characters from Greek mythology. The nymph Echo is in love with the beautiful youth Narcissus, who rejects her. The goddess Nemesis punishes Narcissus by making him fall in love with his own reflection. Claude adopts Ovid’s description showing Narcissus gazing into a ‘clear pool with silvery bright water’ (book 3: 407–412).

The castle in the background is not mentioned in Ovid’s story and is probably imaginary or based on ruins in the countryside near Rome where Claude spent most of his life. Claude often painted seaports like the one seen here in the distance. The vast landscape, framed by trees and buildings, shows Claude’s immense skill at creating light and atmosphere. Claude was less skilled at depicting figures, and they are represented here using thin layers of paint and positioned in awkward poses with little attention given to anatomy.

Two nymphs hide in nearby trees: the lower nymph is probably Echo, who according to the story dies leaving only her voice. The figure reclining at the bottom of the painting was originally partially covered with a blue robe has been repainted as nude. The reason for the change in her appearance remains unknown – this could be the work of Claude himself or a later artist. This figure often appears in paintings as a water nymph: she rests one arm on an urn and a gentle stream flows out of it. Her pose is based on an antique sculpture, called Cleopatra (Vatican Museum, Rome) which decorated a fountain in the Belvedere Palace in Rome. Claude may also have been inspired by the reclining nymph in Titian’s painting The Andrians (Prado, Madrid), which he probably studied in Rome.

The subject of Narcissus and Echo was painted frequently during the seventeenth century but this is Claude’s only known attempt. Painted in 1644 at the height of Claude’s career, it was intended to hang beside its pair, Landscape with a Temple of Bacchus, now in the National Gallery of Canada. Both paintings depict classical subjects, with light coming from different directions in each: the morning light comes from the left in this painting, and an evening light from the right in its pair. These are the only paintings by Claude commissioned by an unknown English patron. However, Claude became one of the most admired and collected painters in England during the eighteenth century.