How to Paint a Dead Man
Rent from DeepDyve- How to Paint a Dead Man
after Cennini, "The Craftsman's Handbook"
Not a portrait, though the likeness is exact,The subject not sitting, though perfectly still.
Not a still-life either, for all of that,
Nor the theater at the anatomy's unveiling,The flaps of the flesh pinned back.
Slabbed here is a figure awaiting emulation,
The values of the flesh laid in—Terre verte shaded with verdaccio—
Till you've managed the major accents,
Up to straight white lead. Not pink, but ocher.Dark sinoper for the outline
And a little tempered black. Likewise the hair
So that it looks dead. Not nude, but naked.Linen canvas rhyming with the winding-sheet. [End Page 56]
Robert Gibb's books include After, which won the 2016 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and Among Ruins, which won Notre Dame's Sandeen Prize in Poetry for 2017. Other awards include a National Poetry Series title (The Origins of Evening), two nea Fellowships, Best American Poetry, and a Pushcart Prize.
