As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises.
The opening line effectively describes the content of the actual painting at the heart of its narrative. The painting is essentially just a mirrored reflection of the painting from the chest up with his hand dominating the foreground and appearing larger than his head as a result of the convex shape of the mirror. Parmigianino is the name by which Italian Renaissance Francesco Mazzola is better known.
"Francesco one day set himself
To take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purpose
In a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . .
He accordingly caused a ball of wood to be made
By a turner, and having divided it in half and
Brought it to the size of the mirror, he set himself
With great art to copy all that he saw in the glass,"
In 1550, Vasari published Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. The quote here is taken verbatim from that source material and is the poet’s way of introducing into his verse the science of artistic technique which allowed the painter to create the illusion of a reflected image in a convex mirror.
The balloon pops, the attention
Turns dully away. Clouds
In the puddle stir up into sawtoothed fragments.
I think of the friends
Who came to see me, of what yesterday
Was like.
The second stanza (technically known as a strophe) begins with the speaker getting distracted and digressing from the focus on the painting. It is the digressive nature of the poem’s structure that lends it depth and meaning as the poem becomes something much more than merely an analysis of the titular artwork.
"Realism in this portrait
No longer produces and objective truth, but a bizarria . . . .
However its distortion does not create
A feeling of disharmony . . . . The forms retain
A strong measure of ideal beauty,"
A new character is introduced: Sydney Freedberg, a leading authority on Renaissance art. The poet is once again using actual quotes from the critic. In this case, it is to introduce and expand upon the larger philosophical implications of the painting. Freedberg argues that painter introduces the element of realism into his self-portrait in the form of recreating the illusion of the convex mirror, but the effect is distinctly the opposite, creating in the viewer a sense of subjective unreality at odds with the aim of objectively reproducing reality that dominates Renaissance art.
A whispered phrase passed around the room
Ends up as something completely different.
It is the principle that makes works of art so unlike
What the artist intended.
The painting which inspired the poem and the poem itself are all as one. Although the self-portrait is the centerpiece of the poem, it is really about the process of trying to recreate objective reality in a world where all art is ultimately subjectively interpreted. What the artist intends and what the audience sees are—to a large degree—acting independently of each other. The result is inexorably one in which a certain amount of perceptual distortions must be expected.
