Self-Reflection
This poem is ostensibly about a painting that is a self-portrait, but it is important to note that unlike many such portraits, the artist here draws attention to the use of a mirror to aid in this task. In fact, the mirror is truly the subject of the painting more than the reflection in it. Likewise, while the painting is the titular subject of the poem, in reality the subject of the poem is the nature of artistic self-reflection. The poem includes digressive episodes that inform the reader about the speaker’s life, history and philosophy. So, in a manner of speaking, the poem itself serves the same purpose as the mirror for the artist, becoming a tool to allow the reader to reflect not upon the painter, but upon himself.
The Value of Criticism
Two art critics are not only mentioned by name, but quoted verbatim from their respective published analyses of the titular painting. Giorgio Vasari was a contemporary of the Renaissance painter and Sydney Freedberg was a contemporary of the poet. Vasari gives insight into the scientific techniques of creating the illusion of the convex reflection while Freedberg provides insight into the philosophy of artistic expression. At the same time, one can add the poet to the list as the work itself becomes part of the canon of artistic criticism which has examined the painting in question. The unspoken thematic assertion here is that criticism of artistic works is a vital part of the process of the continually evolving approach to analysis.
Objective Truth and Distorted Perception
The conventional wisdom related to the portraiture of the Italian Renaissance is that it first and foremost above all else sought to objectively replicate reality. The enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa may be what gives that painting the mystery to have made it the most famous portrait in the world, but that is the only mystery; everything else is as it should be. Or, at least, as one can reasonably expect it should be. Of course, for all anyone knows, the woman smiling out of Da Vinci’s painting may not, in fact, bear any but the most passing resemblance to the actual model. But it’s close enough. Certainly, it is closer to an objective representation of reality than the figure of the painter staring back from “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.” The truth in this painting has been distorted, thereby violating any objective assumptions normally brought to bear. It is, factually speaking, an illusion and truth at all. The reflection is a demonstration of the underlying principle of art which the speaker references and alludes to metaphorically as “whispered phrase” that passes one person to the next across a crowded room until it finally “Ends up as something completely different.” Art, the poem asserts, is always in flux and always at the center of a struggle between objective truth intended by the creator and the distorted perceptions of truth brought to it by his audience.
