RT Journal
A1 Cole TB
T1 EXecution
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2012
FD August 15
VO 308
IS 7
SP 650
OP 650
DO 10.1001/jama.2012.3149
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.3149
AB 
Execution (cover), by the American painter Bendor Mark (1912-1995), is not easy to look at. The painter has put the viewer at the scene of an extrajudicial killing. An image such as this may provoke feelings of frustration or shame at encountering a scene of abuse and being unable to do anything about it, like seeing the photographs of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The prisoner in this painting is no one in particular, just a character in a particularly gruesome act of man's inhumanity to man. Mark emphasizes that this image is a generic execution by depersonalizing the actors in the scene. He does not show the prisoner's face, and he does not show the killer at all.