What role do gazes play in the relation between image and viewer? Drawing on Ovid’s Narcissus and selected Pompeian wall paintings, this lecture explores how pictured figures direct, return, evade, or suspend the viewer’s gaze. 

The case of Mars and Venus demonstrates that gaze, bodily posture, and facial expression do not necessarily produce a coherent emotional narrative. Rather, they create ambiguities and interpretative gaps that activate the viewer’s own judgement. Looking at images thus emerges as an unstable relation between seeing, being seen, and being addressed—one shaped not only by the image itself, but also by its spatial and cultural setting.