Woo, this page was a troublesome one!
Illustration is based on William Hogarth’s The Reward of Cruelty – part of his series of prints depicting a story on cruelty (The Four Stages of Cruelty) in 1751. This particular print of his is pretty visceral, making it an absolutely perfect analogy to the cultural butchery happening right now.
i absolutely LOVE the art history and painting references you have scattered about here–i saw the preview you had for this page early on but it’s so neat to see it in context–very sinister ahah