I wear the crown, but it’s only tin, a gleaming lie I bolted in. Snout deep in the trough again, I gorge on eyes instead of grain. Each click, each stare, a fatty bite; I swallow praise like slop at night. Attention fills the hollow gut, the way true love was meant to, but never does. So I keep eating, crowned and craven, over-heating. Better to starve than beg the feast, a quiet heart outshines the beast This painting is created in ai medium, and sits most comfortably in the Baroque era (c. 1600–1750) with strong echoes of the Dutch Golden Age and Rococo excess, while its satirical bite belongs to the Augustan Age / Age of Satire in literature (early 18th century, especially English Augustan writers like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, and the visual satire of William Hogarth).