An iconography of torture: exhibited recently in New York, Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib series of paintings and drawings graphically depicts Iraqi prisoners undergoing abuse at the hands of their U.S. captors

Hitchens takes issue with Botero's ambition, detailing all the historical differences between the Iraq war and the German destruction of the Basque city. But this seems beside the point. Like Guernica, Botero's Abu Ghraib paintings are a cry of pain at the pointless suffering inflicted on the victims of war. As the details of this sorry episode recede into history, specifics will be trumped by a larger sense of horror and outrage, and we will be left, once again, with a visual reminder of humanity's capacity for inhumanity.

"Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib" was on view at Marlborough Gallery, New York [Oct. 18-Nov. 21, 2006]. Next summer, the Abu Ghraib works are scheduled to be shown at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. Prestel has published a book on the series, Botero: Abu Ghraib, with an essay by David Ebony. A retrospective, "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero," begins its US. tour at the San Antonio Museum of Art [May 26-Aug. 19, 2007] and travels to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art [September-December], the Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Ha. [January-February 2008], the Delaware Art Museum ]March-June 2008], the New Orleans Museum of Art [June-September 2008], the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art [October 2008-January 2009] and the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento [September-December 2009].

Eleanor Heartney is a freelance critic based in New York.

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