Jeptha Homer Wade, American
“Bruh. Either I’m Super High Right Now, Or I Just Invented 3D Glasses,” 1837
Oil on canvas
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MASTERPIECE #2895
Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page.
/// Special glasses protected his sight
from the powerful Argand lamp light.
Mr. Olds was concerned
that the whale oil it burned
would cause blindness from burning so bright.
/// Those odd specs also served to distract
from the very unfortunate fact
that Nathanial can’t cope
with his shoulders’ steep slope,
and the strong manly chest which he lacked.
/// When all things have a strong verdant tint,
your food seems to be flavored with mint.
Olds was told from his teens
to be eating more greens,
but he just couldn’t take the right hint.
/// Four green lenses with “Double D” frame
are these eyeglasses technical name.
But their first claim to “fame”
cast their wearers in shame:
as syphlitics whose eyes felt aflame.
(There is an urban legend that tinted lenses in old photographs and paintings mark the wearers as having syphilis. Google images of “syphilis spectacles.”)
/// He wears green-tinted glasses because
not to do so would break several laws.
With them, everything seen
is a beautiful green,
in the Emerald City of Oz.
/// Oz’s Wizard was full of such tricks.
No real magic, just cons for the hicks.
It was all done for show,
(and you don’t want to know
how he colored that road’s yellow bricks).
/// Styles of eyewear in Oz lean towards kitsch.
And these green lenses have one more hitch.
When each woman you passed
has an emerald cast,
it is hard to I.D. who’s a witch.