A Self-Portrait, the Pitcher, and Rembrandt the Martyr

This article discusses three of Osip Mandelstam's poems that refer to works of art: "A hint of wing in the lifted" (sometimes called "Self-Portrait"), "Delinquent debtor to a long thirst" (or "The Pitcher), and "Like chiaroscuro's martyr Rembrandt." Irina Surat outlines the context of each poem, as well as the art works each refers to, and with reference to other scholars and memoirists places them within Mandelstam's poetic and critical opus.