An Angry Rabbit?
- Mar 12
- 1 min read
Updated: Mar 14
Parmigianino depicts an angry rabbit
At the circumcision of Christ — no, it's
Two of them, the other scuttling away!
Little Lord Jesus, submitting to this ritual habit,
Regards his trimming with Nicaean aplomb.
The Virgin's steady, tough blondie Mom
Views the mohel's miniature snickersnee
In manicured fingers! Ready teddy . . .
In a Parmigianino portrait from 1523, I
Fagiolo dell’Arco saw a dead rat—
An alchemical symbol, or something like that.
It's an antique statuette, actually.
"Revelatory detail" leads the eye astray;*
Who knows, though, what the mindful might say!
Parmigianino, The Circumcision (1523). Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.
*James Elkins, Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles ? On the Modern Origins of Pictorial Complexity (New York: Routledge, 1999), 204. Elkins quotes Daniel Arasse, Le Détail: Pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture (Paris: Flammarion, 1992), 266.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
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