Bronzino Goes To Gad
You try fitting 16 weird words into one semi-sensible gallery review, that rhymes and explicates en route. No picnic, I promise.
(For new browsers, take a peek at the vocab quiz a few posts ago – and this ditty might add up, slightly. Coming soon, half-a-dozen cryptic clues that remain cryptic, even with their answers attached. Stay tooned.)
In the back lanes of Rome
There’s a grisaille (monochrome)
Painting by Bronzino,
A Florentine bambino,
Depicting in variant greens -
Like seaweed (carragheens)
And lettuce (such as Dyers
rocket) – the rampant fires
Of Gad, with Israelites
Engaged in holy fights,
Much as will one day occur
In Imphal, in Manipur.
Now I don’t wish to blame,
Or animadvert, Bronzino’s name,
Nor the Catholic Church,
But my oppo (Opposition Research)
And native-born cynicism
Says the work bears anachronism,
Like the child’s game (tipcat)
Observed on Jordan’s flat,
Or the trumpeter near the top
Playing a modern double stop.
And note the guard ring
Protecting a ruby thing -
Being no jeweller, let’s skip
Nouns, and dub the jewel an oojamaflip -
The size of a Maris piper (spud)
The colour of Turkish (turco) blood
Upon a slaphead (hairless on top)
Of a Russian OGPU cop.