Shakespearean Romanticism in Glass Paintings

Shakespearean Romanticism in Glass Paintings

"Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good..."

Glass Paintings by Dr Abe V Rotor

"As broken glass no cement can redress;

So beauty blemished once, for ever lost..."

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;

A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;

A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;

A brittle that's broken presently;

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,

Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,

As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,

As flowers dead lie withered on the ground,

As broken glass no cement can redress;

So beauty blemished once, for ever lost,

In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost. 

— William Shakespeare

"Spring and autumn in the woods a lovely pair,

                and not a shadow of winter and summer... "                

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,

And all my soul, and all my every part;

And for this sin there is no remedy,

It is so grounded inward in my heart.

Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,

No shape so true, no truth of such account,

And for myself mine own worth do define,

As I all other in all worths surmount.

But when my glass shows me myself indeed,

Beared and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,

Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;

Self so self-loving were iniquity.

'Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise,

Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

— William Shakespeare