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| Henry Fuseli Christ disappearing at Emmaus 1792 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| William Hogarth The Pool of Bethesda ca. 1734-36 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
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| Corrado Giaquinto Birth of the Virgin before 1765 oil on canvas Christ Church, University of Oxford |
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| Anton Raphael Mengs Holy Family with young St John the Baptist 1765 oil on canvas Wellington Collection, Apsley House, London |
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| Francesco Conti Assumption of the Virgin before 1760 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
The Blessed Mother Complains to the Lord Her God
on the Abundance of Brokenness She Receives
Today I heard a rich and hungry boy verbatim quote
all last night's infomercials – an anorectic son
who bought with Daddy's Amex black card
the Bowflex machine and Abdomenizer,
plus a steak knife that doth slice
the inner skin of his starving arms.
Poor broken child of Eve myself,
to me, the flightless fly,
the listing, blistered, scalded.
I am the rod to their lightning.
Mine is the earhole their stories pierce.
At my altar the blouse is torn open
and the buttons sailed across
the incensed air space of the nave,
that I may witness the mastectomy scars
crisscrossed like barbed wire, like bandoliers.
To me, the mother carries the ash contents
of the long-ago incinerated girl.
She begs me for comfort since my own son
was worse tortured. Justice,
they wail for – mercy?
Each prostrate body I hold my arms out for
is a cross my son is nailed to.
– Mary Karr (2012)
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| Jacob de Wit Christ on the Cross ca. 1720 oil on canvas Hatton Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne |
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| Benjamin West Study of Angels ca. 1790 oil on paper Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Francesco Guardi Abundance ca. 1740-50 oil on panel Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Joshua Reynolds Charity ca. 1777 oil on canvas (sketch for stained glass window) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Gavin Hamilton Apollo and Artemis ca. 1770 oil on canvas Glasgow Museums |
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| Richard Wilson Landscape with Diana and Callisto ca. 1755-60 oil on canvas Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| François Boucher Venus 1754 oil on canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| Sante Pacini Study for a Tribute to Giorgio Vasari ca. 1781 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Claude-Augustin Duflos after François Boucher Hommage Champêtre (from Nouveaux Morceaux pour les Paravants) before 1786 etching and engraving Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous French Artist Architectural Fantasy with Vase, Colonnade and Herm ca. 1750 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |