Search results
- ‘ Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror ‘ by John Ashbery is a poem about the limitations of self-portraiture, inspired by the painting of the same name by Parmigianino. The convex mirror distorts the image, reflecting the artist’s sense of self-awareness and the elusiveness of the self.
poemanalysis.com › john-ashbery › self-portrait-in-a-convex-mirrorSelf-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery - Poem Analysis
‘Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror‘ by John Ashbery is a poem about the limitations of self-portraiture, inspired by the painting of the same name by Parmigianino. The convex mirror distorts the image, reflecting the artist’s sense of self-awareness and the elusiveness of the self.
- Female
- October 6, 1975
- Poetry Analyst
People also ask
What is Ashbery's poem 'Self-Portrait in a convex mirror' about?
What is a portrait in a convex mirror by John Ashbery?
Is 'self-portrait in a convex mirror' Ashbery's personal masterpiece?
Who painted self portrait in a convex mirror?
Sep 5, 2023 · Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" provides a postmodern response to the sixteenth-century painting of the same name by the Italian artist Parmigianino.
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Excerpt (first 57 lines) from Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) 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.
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Poem Summary
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
Written in a style often described as verbal expressionism, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is the title poem in the collection for which John Ashbery won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award, all in 1976. Originally published in 1975 in the collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems, the leng...
Born in Rochester, New York, on July 28, 1927, to a fruit farmer and his wife, John Ashbery spent his youth in Sodus, New York, a small town near Lake Ontario. When Ashbery was thirteen, his nine-year-old brother died of leukemia, an event that scarred his childhood with tragedy and loss. Ashbery attended Deerfield Academy and in 1945 enrolled at H...
Strophe 1
“Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” opens immediately with an explanation of Ashbery's subject. In the first strophe (a distinct division within a poem that is similar to a stanza), Ashbery describes the method by which the Renaissance painter Parmigianino created the painting known as Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. With short, vivid phrases, Ashbery outlines the way Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari(1511-1574) discusses the creation of Parmigianino's convex mirror itself from a...
Strophe 2
In the second section of the poem, Ashbery begins a more serious digression from the subject of Parmigianino's painting. His concentration is broken: “The balloon pops.” His thoughts wandering, the narrator thinks of his friends, conversations he has had with them, and the ways in which parts of others—their thoughts, their ideas—are absorbed by the self. We are “filtered and influenced” by others in the same way that light is changed by “windblown fog and sand.” The self, like art, like natu...
Strophe 3
Ashbery, in the third section of the poem, continues to consider what it means to contemplate a painting such as Parmigianino's, particularly when one understands how much more challenging it is to actually capture and express experience. Being able to put todayinto perspective is nearly impossible. The present, the narrator observes, is pregnant with promise and potential: “Even stronger possibilities can remain / Whole without being tested.” The pattern of opposition Ashbery explored in the...
Self-Reflexivity
“Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is a work in which the poet examines, through the course of the poem, his own act of creating poetry. This is known as self-reflexivity, and it features prominently as both theme and device in Ashbery's poem. The work is very much about its own self-reflexivity. Repeatedly, Ashbery calls attention to the creation not just of art, but of his creation of thiswork of art. Additionally, he discusses that this is being done in other works of art as well, particul...
Research the historical event (referred to by Ashbery in “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”) known as the Sacking of Rome, which occurred in 1527. What political circumstances preceded this event?...Browse through an art history text, such as Frederick Hartt's Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and select a painting that you respond to strongly, whether positively or negative...Examine the works of Parmigianino (other than Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror) and other Mannerist painters, such as Correggio. Be sure to examine Mannerist sculptors, such as Cellini, as well. Ob...In the sixth section of “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” Ashbery mentions Mahler's Ninth, and how it was said that a portion of this piece invoked the sentiment of awakening a moment too late. T...Mannerism
The term Mannerism refers to an artistic style beginning to be popular during the later years of the High Renaissance (a period of advanced artistic achievement) in Italy, during the early 1500s. Mannerist works of art were highly individualistic and featured distortions of perspective and qualities that were artificial or exaggerated rather than naturalistic. Parmigianino's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirroris itself an example of a Mannerist piece, and Ashbery's poem has similarly been descri...
Expressionism
Ashbery's style in “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is sometimes referred to as expressionistic rather than Mannerist. Expressionism, or verbal expressionism, is the literary equivalent of the artistic abstract expressionism, in which the artist intentionally uses elements of distortion to create a desired emotional effect. The artists Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picassowere among the best known abstract expressionists. The purpose of verbal expressionism is the conveying of emotional truth,...
Pop Art in 1970s New York
When “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” was written in 1975, visual art in New York was under the influence of several movements, including that of Pop art; Ashbery was, in fact, friends with one of the best known Pop artists of the time, Andy Warhol (1930-1987). A visual artistic movement that began in Britain in the 1950s, Pop art is characterized by the influence of popular mass culture in terms of theme and the techniques the artists employed. A famous example is Warhol's repetition, in g...
1520s: In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (c. 1485-c. 1528) explores the Atlantic coastline of North America. His journey takes him to New York Harbor (where the Verrazzano-Narrows Br...1520s: Mannerism, as an artistic movement, is in its early phases. Parmigianino's works, including Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1524) and Madonna with the Long Neck (1534-1540), along with the...1520s: English-language poetry at this time is dictated by the conventions of the pastoral and lyric forms. Pastoral poetry exalts an idealized, simple world of shepherds and shepherdesses, and it...“Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is perhaps Ashbery's most studied poem; many critics certainly refer to it as his most accessible. Reviewers often comment that the language in it is more straightforward than in his other poems, and that the subject of the poem remains consistent throughout. In 1979, poet, literary critic, and art historian David...
Catherine Dominic
Dominic is an author and freelance editor. In this essay, Dominic explores the way the relationship between order and chaos, as portrayed in Ashbery's “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” functions as a parallel to the relationship between representation and experience. The self-reflexive nature of Ashbery's “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” (its tendency to refer to itself and its own act of having been created) is a much analyzed feature of the poem. Often the focus of such studies is on th...
- John Ashbery
- 1975
Have study documents to share about Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror? Upload them to earn free Course Hero access! This study guide for John Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror offers summary and analysis on themes, symbols, and other literary devices found in the text.
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery: the portrait is the subject of a long poem in a poetry collection by Ashbery, both the poem and the collection of the same name. The book won all three of the major prizes awarded to collections by American poets.
Jul 9, 2024 · “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery, first published in 1974 in the Poetry magazine, is a complex and evocative poem that delves into themes of art, perception, and the nature of self. Inspired by the 16th-century painting of the same name by Parmigianino, Ashbery’s poem weaves together ekphrastic descriptions of the ...
