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| A woman playing a viola, Gerrit Van Honthorst |
A young gambist gamboling about
with her viola da gamba, not a viola á' amare,
caught firmly between her plush thighs.
Titillating how that fine-drawn bowstring
is playing more than one drawn out note
as she frets the long neck of her instrument
in the key of C. She rubs her bow
across the basso string, and plays underhand
in the German style.
In a primeval dance between flame and air
the only candle in the tavern wavers, divine light
threatens to gutter, but flares up before the finale.
The gamblers lean in as she reaches the crescendo.
Who cares what she's playing? She plays them well
with taut bow strings thrumming a primal tune
drawn on chiaroscuro and lace-nippled light.
She's about to have an epic wardrobe fail.
She's wearing the same dress in The Matchmaker.
Clearly she's hot. Perhaps she's having hot flashes.
By contrast, the Man with a Viola da Gamba
is sensibly dressed in a teal silk tunic and lined cape.
They're playing the same scroll-headed instrument.
In Musical Group on a Balcony, her chemise slips
off her shoulders in hopes that the wind will pick up,
under her skirt, a glimpse of a gartered red stocking.
Isn't that her nippled visage in Granida and Daifilo?
Is the painter's wife cavorting with shepherds too?
Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst was nicknamed
Gherardo delle notti, as he was in love with the night.
Gherardo Hollandese was a master of nocturnal light.
It all must be true as Rubens painted our Gerrit
as the one honest man Diogenes sought by lamplight.
I am reminded that gamba is Italian for leg, or thigh.
As in: She had a pair of great gams.
Also the word for ham comes from gamba.
We can't see her gams, as she hams it up,
but she has some mighty fine yams.
Caravaggio would have been proud
of this most opulent display of her finest fruits
escaping the fragile loom of her corselet.
And there you have the entire gambit.
10/29/17
Viol
Gerard van Honthorst
Man with viola da gamba wears a tunic and a lined wool cape.
In The Matchmaker. she's wearing the same dress, but her nipples are not showing.
She appears again in Musical Group on a Balcony, but she's wearing different clothes.
She goes full nipple in Granida and Daifilo
Was it the painter's wife, Sophia Coopmans? See the full story here. She got around,
first draft was meant to be a haiku. It got out of hand.
Gambists gamboling about with their viola da gambas firmly gripped between their thighs. Titillating. That bowstring is playing more than one note.
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