The Seven Ages

of Man collection

 

The Seven Ages of Man collection consists of nine works of various sizes created with recycled acrylic paint on cotton canvas. They are the artist’s rendering of "All the world’s a stage", a monologue from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by Jaques to Duke Senior in Act II Scene VII.

 

The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play, and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, mature man, elder, and old man facing imminent death.

 

The world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,
and one man in his time plays many parts,
his acts being seven ages.

At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. 

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.

Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.

And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. 

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.