Narcissus, circa 1598 by Caravaggio (first)
Thirty are Better than One, 1963 by Andy Warhol (second)
With Narcissus, circa 1598, the Italian baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio portrays a classical scene from mythical antiquity: the self-fixation of the painting's namesake – who left the love of the nymph Echo unrequited. American postmodernist Andy Warhol’s Thirty are Better than One, created in 1963, corrals a set of silk-screened Mona Lisa smiles. These works present quintessential examples of their respective styles and aesthetic schools of thought. 1
Taking each work in turn, the use of light and shadow in Caravaggio's composition emphasizes a tone of uncertainty as well as the moral danger that besets its subject. Warhol's arrangement of faces, though lacking depth, effects a mood of its own through contrast and repetitive structure. Personally, the baroque piece elicits an aesthetic experience which surpasses that of Warhol’s work given its sophisticated display of these aforementioned qualities; the conceptual dimension of these works is of equal importance in this judgement.
Communicated through the glaze of the self-possessed Narcissus is a tragic indictment of its viewer’s own ego – it accuses, yet forgives. Didactic and prescriptive yet dynamic and descriptive, Caravaggio's creation shows us who we are, and asks that we not fall prey to it.
Thirty are Better than One does not entreat contemplation, it flees from it. As one's eyes shift from one face to the next, an anxious anticipation abounds: “What is to come?” Alas, in visuals and vitality, mechanical monotony dominates. Scholars such as Benedetto Croce have claimed that expression and its experience, not re-presentation, are the “vehicle[s]” of aesthetic value.2 By modern and pre-modern standards, Warhol’s work underperforms in being uninterested in creatively re-presenting objective context or cultivating subjective experience – there is no marriage of object and subject for the viewer. Rather, its regurgitation dashes one’s hopes.
Both artists defy expectations; but there is much difference between an impromptu gift and a slap in the face – or thirty, in this case.
Bibliography
DeWitte, Debra J., et al. Gateways to Art: Understanding the Visual Arts. 4th ed., Thames and Hudson, 2023.
Scruton, Roger. Beauty: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 2009, 101.