​​Hushed Hint of a Sneer, by Mary K. Lindberg

Portrait of a Young Woman, by Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italy) c. 1575

​​
​​Hushed Hint of a Sneer 
  
Not all portrait subjects wait for us to look
at them: some want to know what we think
of how they are depicted. They may be wary, 
even nervous about us. Or hostile.

The subject of Giovanni Battista Moroni’s
Portrait of a Young Woman, a Renaissance work 
acquired in 2023 by the Frick Museum,
glances askance at the viewer. She’s not shy.

With elegant pearls woven in her hair,
a white neck ruff, pink dress brocaded
with silver and gold thread, she’s barricaded
as she watches me look at her.

In her peering stare, I see a hushed hint
of a sneer — surprise, perhaps shock. 
Exposed, annoyed, she frets at what I might see.
Moroni shows us something new in portraiture.

An attractive woman, with slightly 
uplifted lip, tenderly raised brow, 
tilt of her head nestled in lace armor, 
holds back stiffly from the spectator.

Moroni’s subject appears to focus on
being looked at and not liking it. As if 
the painter got too close to a real person, 
one the model forgot to leave outside the studio.

Her bold ambivalence suggests the painter’s
brush may have penetrated a secret, new love,
or old one scorned. Did she discover caring
too much could break her heart?

Or, is this simply a jealous moment,
watching the artist pay attention to someone
else while painting her, breaking a vow
she didn’t believe to begin with?
​
Mary K. Lindberg
​
This poem was first published in  Dance of Atoms, Mary K. Lindberg, Oakledge Press, 2025.

Mary K. Lindberg explores links between art, music, dance, literature and nature, as well as reviving Pompeii’s victim’s of the 79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption in her poetry collection Dance of Atoms (Oakledge Press, December 2025). Poems published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Gallery&Studio, Evening Street Review, TER. Member-of-the-Month, Poetry Society of NY, December 2025. Grand Prize, Dancing Poetry Contest (2021). Prizes in Ina Coolbrith Circle contests. Chapbook, The Tang of Glue (Puddinghouse, 2006). She enjoys the challenges of ekphrastic writing.