I was once read a long poem by John Ashbery about this painting. Everything seemed perfectly articulated, the structure of the subject in this globe, his hand, that which reaches out to express itself, distorts as it comes up against the limit. But the limit is an overdramatized sense of self. In truth, existence traverses the mirror with brutal disregard, defacing precious subjectivity. The vanity of restraint is present in the painting above, and though this may be a pessimistic view (that is, humility over arrogance), its fatalism already posits too much, existence is something much more tragic than the cage of your self-reflection.