What is the drawing in this ekphrastic poem?
Upvote:5
I took the subject to be a stableboy or (less likely) jockey. Black jockeys are a pretty common theme in southern American pop art, often intended, as Wikipedia tactfully put it, "to evoke an Old South or equestrian ambiance". A less tactful person might point out the evocation of a certain hierarchal social order, including a particularly graphic depiction of exactly who is on the bottom*.
Justice himself was born and raised in Florida, where he would have had plenty of opportunity to be exposed to this flavor of American pop art. However, if I'm interpreting him right, (which by my history with poetry seems unlikely), he seems to be taking a subversive view of it.
Because of that, and the name of the poem, I suspect the particular work of art itself was some manner of pop art, and not considered by the author to be of enough consequence to call out by name.
* - Tact on such matters has never really been my strongest suit.
Upvote:5
Sounds like a renaissance type painting with a young black page boy. It was a fashion in Europe for wealthy people to have an exotic young manservant. A number of paintings of the era show young black boys dressed up in fashionable attire.
Perugia is in Italy though a quick glance at the only artist I could find from there yielded no negro page boy results.
The puffed breeches are more likely to be 16th/17th century fashion than jodhpurs and the ruffles suggest an earlier fashion too.
The Dutch Zwarte Piet costume would be a convenient image to see what is being described.
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