Detail of the center panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, by Hieronymous Bosch, c. 1500. © Prado, Madrid / Bridgeman Images.

Flesh

Volume IX, Number 4 | fall 2016

Miscellany

Jin dynasty general Yuanzi once peeked in on a soothsaying Buddhist nun while she bathed. He watched her carve open her belly, take out her viscera, and cut off her own head. Later, the nun emerged intact. “If you remove or bully the supreme ruler,” she told Yuanzi, “your body should be like that.” The general was disappointed; he had been planning a coup but now reconsidered. 

Very shy people don’t even want to take up the space that their body actually takes up.

—Andy Warhol, 1975

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The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.
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DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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