I don't think this is particularly effective as an ekphrastic poem. The first two stanzas really describe the picture and its narrative--this is why we don't need the painting in front of us to understand the sonnet. But it isn't a good reason for something...that doesn't necessarily have to happen. I think an ekphrastic that stands on its own should send me looking for the art at the end, if I am not already familiar with it. If I am familiar with it, I want to see it differently. This poem fails in that regard, I'm afraid.
The line "floats pale and doughy as an unbaked boule." is a little too clever for the use of the word "boule", which is standard fare bread in French still life paintings. And "underneath the master’s practiced hand" reminded me of a line in Don McClean's Starry Starry Night song about Van Gogh. It also opens the door to what I think really needs to be kept out, and that is the part that gets into the painter's process. That is almost always, as it is here, fraught with knowledge or understanding the writer brings to the painting.
So, yes. I think this is too thought-out. The writer picks up on an interesting hook--the painter painting a woman who is painting herself, and thus painting himself as all portraits are to some degree self portraits (his regard for her parallels self regard, thus model and painter are before the “canvas” looking into their own faces). But the writer wastes precious sonnet space by imposing and to some extend describing this interpretation rather than showing an affect the painting has on the viewer.
On a technical point,
so good at unseen faults in others
and at his own,
is grammatically too compressed. It is not demanding syntax--I think it’s just wrong.
RM
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