Agnolo Bronzino’s painting Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, (1545, National Gallery London) inspired this poem. Bronzino was an Italian mannerist and court painter for Cosimo I de’Medici. This is an allegorical painting, but the meaning of the painting and the identities of the characters present continues to elude art historians. Venus is identifiable by the golden apple she grasps in her left palm; Cupid can be recognized by his arrow, which Venus pulls from its quiver with her other hand. Folly is thought to be the child figure to the right, and Time is the old man. I first saw this painting in textbook when I was in high school, but its mysterious quality has always interested me.
Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time
Their tender flesh, their pale skin, the soft light
Her leg holds her body –– up
Irregularly
his lips parts hers ever so gently
he gazes down at her
but
his eyes
miss
she stares out
slightly tilting her head
up–
while muscles hold them up
at unrealistic angles
other muscles tear down
their unrealistic fantasy
exposing the darkness that their pale, white, porcelain bodies hide
The illusion–
was only viable through an angelic
baby
who has not yet learned
yes
her lips are slightly parted
their bodies are lit in an – ever-sickly
grey light
their shadows hide the unknown
objects behind them
that will
resurface
Fittingly, I would like to direct you all to the Guerrilla Girl’s Website. Originally founded in 1989, the Guerrilla Girls created a poster campaign that pointed out the inequity in the ratio of the number of women artists in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the number of female nudes. This underrepresentation is still a problem in museums today.
(Images Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
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