Crown of Ozymandias 2026
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
–Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias (1818)
I wrote yesterday about a work-in-progress that I was calling Ozymandias after the long-forgotten king in Shelley’s poem that puts our self-importance into the grander context of time.
The mighty now will almost certainly not be so in the future.
The painting is shown here on the right. It is 48″ by 24″ and will be included in my October solo exhibit at the West End Gallery. The image of it shows it as it is now on the easel. I am still deciding if it needs changes or touches here and there. It’s the kind of piece that hits hard and sometimes that initial impact causes me to overlook some small but necessary touches. I generally get to spend some time with a piece, so they almost always get caught before going out into the world.
I spent some time earlier in the week making these sorts of small changes to a few pieces painted months ago. They felt complete after I finished them, but time showed that they needed some small touches. They now feel complete to me, having that sense of rightness I often mention here.
This painting, as I mentioned above, hits hard. I get as far away from it as I can here in the studio and it maintains a powerful glow. Great visual impact, the kind that, with its size, can dominate a space.
It makes a statement.
I loved painting this piece and seeing it now. There is an eye candy element to it that is hard to resist. But I think it has something to say. I think it may something different to every individual viewer.
I can only speak for myself here, but the meaning I take from it is bittersweet, one that hung with me while I worked at it in over the last several days. It reminded me of the temporary nature of my existence and perhaps, of my work. While I might feel emboldened and strong when working on a piece, making a grand statement, it may one day be reduced to nothingness.
My thoughts on it will be meaningless.
Kind of like the words from Ozymandias at the top of the page, carved into the pedestal of that broken statue buried in a desolate desert.
I felt very much like Ozymandias while working on this piece. Big and bold. Regal.
But it came with a bittersweet aftertaste. The sun that might seem to be rising to some felt like it was setting in my mind. I sensed that the boldness and the power was momentary.
That time would soon reclaim its bounty.
I am Ozymandias this morning and this Red Tree is my crown.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Here’s a song that has nothing to do with this at all. Probably. I don’t know. Maybe it does. This is John Prine and That’s the Way the World Goes Round.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.