There are in the letters and arts of the West some themes and motifs that surprise by the frequency of their appearance and by their persistence throughout the times. It should be said, however, that they surprise above all for their intensity and symbolic force, to the point that they arise in the most diverse literary and artistic contexts, without excluding art and literature of the avant-garde. One of these motifs is the glass of water, which from Velázquez and Chardin to Iran do Espírito Santo or the photographer Josef Sudek, through Zurbarán, Juan Gris or Luis Fernández and from Wallace Stevens, Jorge Guillén or Francis Ponge to younger generations of European and American poets, have seen in the image of the glass of water a whole host of values and spiritual resonances, intellectual and sensitive. This essay by Andrés Sánchez Robayna explores that motif and makes us see its significance, its diversity and its depth as an image.