I wrote this about Jorie Graham's "At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Body":
Leveled Perspective in Graham’s “At Luca Signorelli’s Resurrection of the Body”
Luca Signorelli, a Tuscan Renaissance painter, began to create “The Resurrection of the Flesh” at the end of the 15th century; painted in the Orvieto Cathedral, Signorelli’s “The Resurrection of the Flesh” covers a wall depicting rising spirits re-inhabiting their bodies as winged angels look down from above. Centuries later Jorie Graham, a contemporary poet, stood below this painting in Orvieto, intrigued with Signorelli’s lifelike artwork and his search for truth in rendering the human form. Internalizing the piece, she wrote searchingly about the fresco, utilizing ekphrasis to advance her conception of Signorelli’s original piece. Focusing on the tiered perspective of Luca Signorelli’s painting, with viewers looking up at newly formed bodies idling under angel’s gaze, Jorie Graham reconstructs the artist’s work in her poem “At Luca Signorelli’s Resurrection of the Body,” to emphasize her understanding of the constructed hierarchy of existence and argue from what sources man receives truth.
In Signorelli’s painting “The Resurrection of the Flesh,” the green-winged angels glaring down from above make up the highest level of the work; to Graham, these angels symbolize God as well as Signorelli himself, an artist who plays God through his deconstruction of the human form in search of truth. To emphasize the painter as God, Graham questions the spirits as they hurry; are they “pulling themselves up through the soil into the weightedness, the color, into the eye of the painter” (45-46)? As the spirits hurry up through the soil, they move under the gaze of angels. Similarly, as the artist constructs each embodied form upon his canvas, they come to life under his gaze; he is their creator. Graham’s word choice in this phrase remains significant; her layering of the phrases “into the weightedness, the color, into the eye of the painter,” implies that each expression interchangeably holds the same meaning. The “weightedness” and “color” the spirits move into emphasize the higher significance and vibrancy of the divine presence each resurrected body ascends into. The angelic beings above dwarf the clustering spirits in both size and appearance; in brightly colored robes and with clear purpose, these angels outshine the new spirits in their naked confusion, modeling perfection and understanding. Signorelli seeks this artistic perfection through an understanding of the body. Taking the painter’s personal life into account, Graham’s poem depicts Signorelli upon this quest, caught in old habits of dissection, as he searches for comprehension of life and form. In this way, Signorelli literally pulls dead spirits “up through the soil” and into his scrutinizing eye. The painter seeks the truth of the body in deconstruction and applies that perfected truth towards creating life on canvas; this act associates Signorelli with God, the same divine being represented by heralding angels in the uppermost level of his painting “The Resurrection of the Flesh.” Though godlike and elevated to the top of the painting, Signorelli seeks truth, this same truth that spawned his apotheosis, by descending into the depths of mortality and death.
Underneath the ideal seraphs, Signorelli depicts men and women in the process of re-inhabiting their bodies. Rising to take up the flesh, these rushing spirits compose the middle level of Signorelli’s painting and reflect humanity in its mortal grapple for truth. Graham describes their return to life noting, “They amble off in groups, in couples. Soon some are clothed, there is distance, there is perspective” (46). Interestingly, the spirits’ first awakening impulses move them to cluster together. Whether congregating “in groups” or “in couples,” the inhabited bodies lack the self-assurance to stand alone. Their human emotions betray them, emanating the fear of loneliness and the desire for acceptance. Though endowed with god-like bodies, bodies perfected in form and reminiscent of the angels above them, the young spirits are far from the divine beings they seek to replicate. Despite this “distance” between them, both a literal distance of space and a figurative distance of spiritual development, each human looks upward, desiring a model to follow. In an article on Jorie Graham’s poetry, Thomas Gardner addresses this distance. He writes tellingly how Graham’s genius lies in her ability to pick apart art by slowing things down and looking at each level of perspective. She unwittingly “[pries] apart…difference(s in text) and make[s] [them] habitable“(349). In “At Luca Signorelli’s Resurrection of the Dead,” Graham bridges the distance and differences between the embodied spirits and angels above through the spirits desire to be like the divine beings overhead. Graham notes of the spirit, “Soon some are clothed,” just as the angels above them, and suddenly “there is perspective.” Graham calls into question what it is that brings new perspective to the spirits; does the simple possession of a body, the one necessary element for human life, inform their understanding? Or perhaps the recognition of their place in a hierarchy, that they are on middle ground, distanced from above and rising from below, enlightens their view of the world. Regardless of origin, the newfound perspective of these spirits, spirits who look up and see greater things, allows them to reflect humanity in their search for truth from above.
Underneath this middle level of humanity lies the ground: symbolic of death and things outside mortal existence. Jorie Graham herself takes on the lowest level in Signorelli’s painting, embodying the viewer looking up from below as she attempts to bestow upon the painted figures wisdom and truth from an outside perspective. While remaining alive, Graham sits far outside the borders of the image and the existence of Signorelli centuries before. Commenting as an outsider looking in, she wonders, “Standing below them in the church in Orvieto, how can we tell them to be stern and brazen and slow, that there is no entrance, only entering” (46). “Standing below” the scuffling figures, Graham attempts to bestow wisdom on the spirits, wisdom from beyond the grave that they have forgotten in their newfound flesh. She calls to them, “how can we tell them to be stern and brazen and slow”? In their excitement for life, the resurrected spirits immediately look and act human, carelessly grouping, talking, and milling about. Through her words, Graham seems to lament their lack of reverence for the miraculous event of re-birth; having lived once already, the spirits are blind to the profound second chance offered by their resurrection. Here, Graham pleas, here lies a chance to live better than before. She begs seriousness from the figures, pleading that they be unashamed of their bodies and revel in the seconds of the experience. Though they will never understand, she hopes to tell them that “there is no entrance, only entering.” Graham tries to inform humanity that resurrection, as life, is not composed of a crowning moment, so much as crowning moments; each process can be easily missed if carelessly hurried through. From her outside perspective, Graham attempts to pass on truth to the rushing figures of humanity embodied within the painting. In spite of her inferior position, looking up from the lowest perspective of the poem toward the bodies and the angels, Graham’s words abound with wisdom and certainty. Her profound words boldly assert that truth may be found from below.
Through Graham’s clever retelling of Luca Signorelli’s painting “The Resurrection of the Flesh,” she focuses on the levels depicted within the work, with God on top, humanity underneath, and death or the outside world below; to comment strikingly on the hierarchy of existence and the sources from which man derives truth. Graham claims that truth may be found from above and below as Signorelli descends into the bowels of the flesh for knowledge, humanity looks up for example and enlightenment, and the middle figures of the painting cannot hear profound truth coming from the ground.
Works Cited
Gardner, Thomas. “Jorie Graham’s The End of Beauty and a Fresh Look at Modernism.” Southwest Review. 88:2/3, 2003. Internet. http:search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an+11345563&db=afh
Graham, Jorie. The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994.
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