Echo and Narcissus

Echo and Narcissus is an oil painting on canvas by John William Waterhouse, shown at the Royal Academy in 1903 and bought the same year by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, where it remains.

Born in Rome and trained in his father's studio and at the Royal Academy Schools, Waterhouse exhibited at the Academy from 1874 until his death in 1917, becoming a full Academician in 1895. He is usually grouped with the Pre-Raphaelites, though the Walker suggests he is better seen as a Romantic Classicist, drawn more to classical and Italian subjects than to medieval ones. Liverpool was one of his main exhibiting centres, and his work appeared regularly at the Walker from 1879.

The subject comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Narcissus, son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope, was destined to live long only if he never saw himself. He spurned everyone who loved him, among them the nymph Echo, who could only repeat the last words spoken to her and wasted away until nothing was left but her voice. The goddess Nemesis then made him fall in love with his own reflection; he stayed gazing at it until he died, and a narcissus flower grew in his place.

Waterhouse sets the story in a wooded glade beside a rocky stream. Narcissus lies face down at the water's edge, half wrapped in red, absorbed in his reflection and never turning towards Echo, who sits apart across the water, gripping a tree and watching him in despair, a poppy in her auburn hair. Narcissi have sprung up near the youth's foot, with yellow irises around Echo and a yellow water lily in the pool. The Art Journal called it one of the best examples of imaginative art to be found at that year's Academy. The canvas measures 109.2 by 189.2 cm.