The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

That Day in Assisi by Michael Janairo

8/14/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Cimabue and Giotto in Assisi, by Deborah Zlotsky (USA), 2014. Click image to visit her site.
That Day in Assisi

Remember that dark, patched robe
Held erect on some flimsy stand, its frayed
edges on display in the Chapel of Relics,
testament to the impoverished saint protected
in the fortress basilica in Assisi? Or, maybe,
not a robe robe but — what was that word? --
tunic or habit — though aren't those worn
by nuns? — and wasn't it the key to his story,
to the birth of his order, the foundation for
this edifice, a monument to modesty? You,
though, were drawn not to the long-dead saint's
vestments, the supposed trace of his actual
body, so small as to be startling; rather,
your eyes led to the Upper Basilica
and the frescoes that spoke of the world before the
Renaissance as they told the lives of Christ and Saint Francis.

I remember faint traces of some once regal blue
in what is most likely Cimabue’s time worn Crucifixion,
the Christ, Angels and followers faded to pale apparitions
of the artist’s intent, while the people in Giotto’s
Legend of Saint Francis — at least some attribute it to him,
Cimabue’s student — appeared so crisp in their lines
they seemed to represent a kind of contemporaneity
to bring the life of Francis back alive when the work was new.

And in your abstract painting, in which boxy shapes
appear connected or open into one another, linked
together, but without any clear beginning or end,
I see the dull brown of Saint Francis’s habit and a rich blue
hinting at either Cimabue’s or Giotto’s original intent,
and still more colours, soft grays, tans, and greens as silent
and somber as a chapel in the Lower Basilica in Assisi.

Your painting moves, or at least the shapes and colours
move the eye with a strong sense of momentum, even with
abrupt changes in direction, suggesting there is no one
definitive movement through the work, much like the questions
raised by how we remember ourselves on that day in Assisi,
in that ironic church — a glorious religious monument
to a man, a Saint, whose life and order rejected such things --
a temple to memory in which the art has faded over time
and has lifted a cloud of doubt of who exactly was the artist.

Michael Janairo

Michael Janairo is a former newspaper columnist and editor who now works at a museum in upstate New York, where he lives with his wife, son and dog. His writing has been published in various journals and anthologies, including Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Star*Line Magazine, Eye to the Telescope, Kartika Review, Maganda Magazine, Walang Hiya: Literature Taking Risks Toward Liberatory Practice, and the Abiko Quarterly. His family name is pronounced "ha NIGH row." He blogs at michaeljanairo.com.






   
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead