Model Poem by gershon hepner

On a box and carpet sits a model,
her reflection in a mirror by the wall.
We know the artist will become a godol,
but the model does not care at all.
“Who is the fairest of them all? ” is not
the question that we ask, and nor does she.
“I’m shamefully employed by him, ” is what
she thinks, but he would clearly not agree.
He’s paid her to undress and has the freedom
to paint her as he wants, this his compulsion
which brings him into, and her out of, Eden:
he finds the entry gate, she finds expulsion.

Inspired by a 1903 Matisse painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 'Carmelina' (1903) . A very tense and unattractive naked model sits on a carpeted box. Part of her is reflected in a mirror on the wall, and we catch a tiny glimpse of Matisse in the mirror. The model does not look at all happy. She is hardly as voluptuous as the odalisques in later Matisse paintings. We see in this painting a cruel male gaze that is erotically unredeemed. Godol is Yiddish for great, and denotes a great rabbi. Matisse never aspired to become a great rabbi, of course, but he did become a godol among painters.

11/25/08