JoAnne Carson on The East Wind
March 2, 2022

The East Wind, 1984, depicts the Plagues of Egypt, a story in the book of Exodus that tells of ten disasters inflicted on Biblical Egypt by the God of Israel in order to convince the Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to depart from slavery. 
The plagues are: water turning to blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and the killing of firstborn children. 
The title of the painting, East Wind, refers to the eighth plague: “an east wind brought the locusts.”

I was living at the American Academy of Rome for a year, captivated by the thousands of epic, religious paintings that dominate the museums and churches there. It made me wonder: what biblical story most relates to contemporary life? Plagues, I decided. Little did I know that thirty-six years after the painting was made we would be living in our own plague era – a pandemic brought on by Covid.
 
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