Profile of a Capri Girl

out from the blushing white

a solemn swan begins.  her

peppercorn feathers

nestle cinnamon ears,

silken a nape, garnish

one doleful eye. a crease

behind her jawline belies

the nerves of his new muse

— an unswallowed shyness.

her sugared clove nose trails

to a dusted garnet mouth;

gentle, capri pout.

            r   o   s   i   n   a

did he snub you unwittingly,

elven altarpiece, to bundle

up your chin,

pare down

your lips?

could you foresee

        your sit

            unfinished?

            f   e   r   r   a   r   a

 breath of greek skies    dryad

   lost to a pencil wind.

       your essence is carnage.

   your unfettered spirit   flayed

 polished    and mounted.

                                                                                                  a hidden half-life.

~

~

Thank you for reading!

I wrote this poem based on the accompanying painting. I saw it at the Denver Art Museum and was so interested in it, that I had to explore it through poetry. It's a style of poetry called ekphrasis, which is a Greek word describing the dramatic description of a piece of artwork. Ekphrastic poetry is a common way to do this.

I was taught that ekphrastic poetry is meant to somehow depict a visual aspect of the artwork in the shaping of the verses. In mine, I tried to follow the profile of Rosina's face in the profile of the poem itself.

If you want to learn more about ekphrastic poetry, please visit below:

Something about this piece caught my attention. Her expression is very nuanced, with room for interpretation. The flowers in her hair complemented her dress and the white background, creating an exotic feel to the overall piece. I was enraptured by the way her hair floated around her neck. Of all the interested aspects, though, I was most interested in the fact that the painting was left unfinished. Or maybe it was intentionally left unfinished. Whatever the truth, I found the sketch lines beautiful, as though the model is fading away.

Surprisingly, there is a lot of information about the model depicted in this piece. Ferrara became John Singer Sargent's muse when he took a trip to Capri in 1878, and was one of the few local girls to interact with the group of artists who chose the island for the locale of their working holiday.

Sargent befriended one of the artists who had met Ferrara previously, Frank Hyde, and was introduced to her at his studio on the island. Hyde is the intended recipient of the painting, as per the note in the bottom right corner: "To my friend, Hyde. Souvenir of John S. Sargent. Capri 1878." This portrait is considered one of the best of Sargent's early career and I find it interesting that he painted it on cardboard. You can't even tell!

Side note: I love Sargent's style. The more of his paintings that I see, the more I fall in love with his use of colors, the way he captures movement, how each painting contains a sense of sequestered whimsy. And all of his portraits of Ferrara (around a dozen) are stunningly beautiful.

Here are a few, to give you a taste.

Unsurprisingly, Sargent and Ferrara fell into a love affair during his time on Capri. It was short-lived, only lasting a summer, but we can see the way he obsessed over her in his portraits. As his muse, the seventeen year old Ferrara was vibrant, full of energy, and almost always dancing. And, I mean, just look at how she eyes the "camera" in that last painting. She was unreserved when posing for him.

It's hard to believe, looking at these portraits, that Sargent's intention of going on his working holiday, was to improve his portraiture. These are absolutely gorgeous, all of them. I'm not in a position to critique artistic technique, but to my untrained eye, Sargent didn't need to improve anything, though perhaps he did need the practice. The art world will mention his improvement during this trip, of course, but certainly that improvement wasn't marking a progression from bad to great; maybe just great to better.

Now, if you're curious about what happened to Ferrara after Sargent left, well, there is information on that too. She continued to model for visiting artists. She had a daughter five years after meeting Sargent. In 1891, she married an American artist, a rich muralist called George Randolph Barse. They moved back to his home in NYC. In 1934, at the age of 73, she died of pneumonia and Barse was so heartbroken and devastated, that he committed suicide three years later.

By all accounts, Ferrara was a magnetic soul. She must have been a rare creature for the time, to attract such attention, beautiful depictions of herself, and such love from her husband. I wish I could have met her.