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| Charles van Beveren The Duet ca. 1830-50 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
PORTRAIT
This is a picture of you
Reading this poem. Concentrate
On the finite movement
Of your eyes as they travel
At this moment across
The page, your fingers
Maintaining the stability
Of the sheet. Focus on the particular
Fall of your hair, the scent
Of your hands, the placement of your
Feet now as they acknowledge
Their name.
Simultaneous with these words, be aware
Of your tongue against
Your teeth, the aura
Of heat at your neckline
And wrists, the sense
Of your breath inside its own hollows.
Imagine yourself
Ten feet away and look back
At your body positioned
Here with this book. Picture
The perspective, the attitude
Of your shoulders and hips,
The bend of your head as you
Read of yourself.
Observe how you turn back as you
Remember the sounds surrounding you now,
As you recall the odor
Of wood fiber in this place
Or the lack of it.
And take note of this part
Of your portrait – the actual
Mechanism by which you are perceiving
The picture, the fixed
Expression on your face as you
Arrange these words at this moment
Into their proper circles, as you
Straighten out the aspects
Of the page, the linguistics of the sight
And color of light on the paper.
This is the printed
Form of you watching
Yourself now as you consider
Your person. This portrait is
Finished when you raise
Your eyes.
– Pattiann Rogers (1978)
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| Charles van Beveren Portrait of sculptor Louis Royer 1830 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Mattheus Verheyden Portrait of Charlotte Beatrix Strick van Linschoten ca. 1755 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Mattheus Verheyden Portrait of François van Aerssen 1728 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Jean-Étienne Liotard Portrait of Maria Josepha of Saxony, Dauphine of France 1749 pastel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Arnold Boonen Portrait of a man ca. 1690-1729 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Arnold Boonen Portrait of a woman ca. 1690-1729 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
PORTRAIT
My father would have me be a female Picasso,
devouring men instead of women. He made me
in his own image –
no tears, no harangues, no praying mantis – what poor
Olga Khokhlova became, shredded by jealousy.
No, I am above all that on my pedestal – the muse,
the object, the daughter. Galatea. I am to be a temptress,
not tempted by love, only by lust.
Excuse me, the sensuous.
My sensuous nature delights in sex, cares like a mother,
envelops like the weather, but I am not
subject to the dark side of commingling.
There's nothing worse than desiring
more than you are desired. He taught me that.
Never a graceful exit because I'm already gone.
He's after me, dying of despair. He never got bored.
I didn't let him.
I disappeared.
– Justine Cook (2000)
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| circle of Nicolas Largillière Portrait of a woman ca. 1690-1720 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck Portrait of Eduard Wallis 1652 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck Portrait of Maria van Strijp 1652 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Adriaen Thomasz Key Portrait of a man (age 38) 1581 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Giambattista Moroni Portrait of a young woman ca. 1560-78 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous artist Portrait of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Comte de La Baume Saint Amour, Minister to Charles V and Philip II of Spain 1565 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
PORTRAIT
One ninth of March when for reasons that we can only
suppose Monseigneur who bore the name of a saint
gone into legend had wished to be rendered immortal
in tapestry and he had for his agent in this
affair none other than the priest who was
precentor and canon at the cathedral named for
the same saint the said priest signing for him on the one hand
and Adrian a merchant from Braban on the other
having made certain pacts and agreements touching upon
the design and depicting of the same Monseugneur
to be portrayed with his story in lengths of tapestry
of certain form and style determined by those same
the said tapestry to be brought by said Adrian
to the city of Bordeaux and left in the house
of honest Yzabeau Bertault widow for her
to send it on to the said priest after making
payment of certain monies and on this same day
said delivery having been made and said payment
given before two further agents of Monseigneur
because they themselves were not qualified to say
whether said tapestry made up of eight lengths six long
two short was of the same worth and value that the same
Adrian claimed and was receiving namely two hundred
forty livres ten sous two other merchants experts
of that city were present to bear witness to its worth
there is no tapestry only the signatures
– W.S. Merwin (1996)
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| attributed to Frans Pourbus Portrait of a Knight of the Order of Calatrava ca. 1555-58 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Bartholomeus Bruyn Portrait of Elisabeth Bellinghausen 1538-39 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)