Got flowers in my feelings,
hearts in the mail;
punishments for healing,
thumbs on every scale.
Weighed all my options,
talked to all the folk;
no additional reservation,
providence bespoke.
There are moments to notice,
first light in the real;
praying over every plate,
like its my last meal.
1908 Leaded Favnile glass
Tiffany Studios, Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC
Tiffany’s work heralded landscape as an appropriate alternative to figural subjects for memorial windows and conferred religious significance upon the natural world. This window, originally installed in a mausoleum in a Brooklyn cemetery, employs a familiar motif, the river of life, with a slender stream zigzagging through mountains and spilling into a placid pool in the middle ground of the composition. Masses of irises and two magnolia trees dominate the foreground and aptly illustrate the coloristic properties of Tiffany’s famed opalescent glass. Folding and manipulation of the glass while it was in its semi-molten state produced flowers that simulate the texture of real magnolia blossoms.