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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1737 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1737 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1737 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
from Large Intestine
Look in the mirror. Let us both look.
Here is my naked body.
Apparently you like it.
I have no reason to.
Who bound us, me and my body?
Why must I die
together with it?
I have the right to know where the borderline
between us is drawn.
Where am I, I, I myself.
Belly, am I in the belly? In the intestines?
In the hollow of the sex? In the toe?
Apparently in the brain. I do not see it.
Take my brain out of my skull. I have the right
to see myself. Don't laugh.
That's macabre, you say.
It's not me who made
my body.
I wear the used rags of my family,
an alien brain, fruit of chance, hair
after my grandmother, the nose
glued together from a few dead noses.
What do I have in common with all that?
What do I have in common with you, who like
my knee, what is my knee to me?
Surely
I would have chosen a different model.
I will leave both of you here,
my knee and you.
Don't make a wry face, I will leave you all my body
to play with.
And I will go.
There is no place for me here
in the blind darkness waiting for
corruption.
I will run out, I will race
away from myself.
I will look for myself
running
like crazy
till my last breath.
– Anna Swir, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan (1996)
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1737 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1737 drawing on blue paper National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie 1737 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie (after Benedetto Luti) 1754 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie (after Benedetto Luti) 1754 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Benedetto Luti Académie before 1724 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
The drawing directly above is one of Benedetto Luti's original studies, from the same series as those copied in Italy by Ramsay, and probably brought brought back with him after his travels.
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| Allan Ramsay Académie 1754 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1754-56 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1754-57 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie 1755 drawing on blue paper National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1756 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie ca. 1758 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie undated drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Allan Ramsay Académie undated drawing National Galleries of Scotland |