Seeing through the mirror
In 1524, when he was just sixteen, on a panel shaped like a convex mirror, Parmigianino painted himself, his hand in the foreground lengthened, out of shape. He captioned the painting “Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror.”
John Ashbery wrote a poem about the painting, likewise entitled “Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror.” A long, varied piece, it tackles the ways in which perception distorts reality.
Among its memorable passages is one about finding the painter at work in his room.
“We have surprised him
At work, but no he has surprised us
As he works. The picture is almost finished,
The surprise almost over, as when one looks out,
Startled by a snowfall which even now is
Ending in specks and sparkles of snow.
It happened while you were inside, asleep,
And there is no reason why you should have
Been awake for it, except that the day
Is ending and it will be hard for you
To get to sleep tonight, at least until late.”
That is how Ashbery conveys one’s astonishment at catching a painter putting the finishing touches on his work, which unknown to others he had been toiling on in secret. It does not differ from one’s amazement upon waking up to see the last flakes of snow drifting down, and the realization that the snow had fallen while one was in bed.
Always, after sleep, whether for the night or during the daytime, we see the world with fresh eyes. We notice a change, that there were things that happened while we were snoring.
This too was the experience—but on a far bigger and more marvellous scale—that Peter, John and James had when Jesus brought them up a mountain to pray. Luke tells us that during prayer they were “overcome by sleep.” And while they were sleeping, Jesus’ face “changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.” When they were fully awake, the three apostles “saw his (Jesus’) glory and the two men standing with him.” The two, Moses and Elijah, were conversing with Jesus about the “exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.”
Before Moses and Elijah left, Peter innocently suggested, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But then, “a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,” and “from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my chosen Son; listen to him.’”
Luke adds: “After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.”
“Dazzling white” is how Luke describes the appearance of Jesus. Matthew has more details—“His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow.” Mark likewise uses “dazzling white” with some additions: “And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.”
The words denote the same event, but they fail to give it complete justice. They, or any other mode of human expression, be it with language or paint, cannot fully catch the reality of it. Perhaps this was what Parmigianino wanted to convey, when he purposely distorted his portrait by painting what he saw reflected of himself on a convex mirror—that he was not exactly what people perceived of him.
If, with regard to how we interpret human experience, as Ashbery’s poem puts it, “[t]he words are only speculation,” how much less of a mirror are they of the numinous? Ashbery only considers the ephemeral. What of the reality that lies beyond time? With God’s grace, the vision of Peter, James and John we all of us will have in the end. Of this Paul writes to the Corinthians: “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.”
