September 19, 2005

The Shakespeare Thing

I was just watching a tape of one of my many Shakespeare documentaries and I was wondering - why haven't I done a Shakespeare panel in stained glass? After all, I have held a near obsession with the plays of Shakespeare for more than 25 years. I've seen every play. I've done other stained glass panels dedicated to literary figures - why not Shakespeare?

I had thought of doing a Shakespeare panel in the Quotation series, using this quote, from "All's Well that Ends Well" -

"The web of our lives is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whip't them not; and our vices would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues. "

The general ideas come but the images don't. The composition and structure alludes me. For instance, I have a commission for a Shakespeare window but I have yet to crack the design problem. It is to be a Shakepeare insult panel - inspired at least somewhat by the famous internet Shakespeare insult generator, featuring a mix of fake but real sounding generated insults and some insults taken directly from the plays. My favorite Shakepearean insult is most likely to be front and center in the panel -
from King Lear

OSWALD

What dost thou know me for?

KENT

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.

Now, that's an insult. But what pictures to put with it? There is always the approach of simply putting a portrait of Shakepeare with the quote, but that seems a bit strange with the insult quote. Perhaps make it all text, with different dynamic fonts. That might be the best approach. Perhaps one that somehow subtly incorporates the famous Dreoshout portrait (the one on the first folio) of Shakepeare.

Posted by Tom at September 19, 2005 10:59 PM