Musée Des Beaux Arts (poem)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Musée des Beaux Arts" ( French for "Museum of Fine Arts") is a 21-line
poem Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
written by
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...
in December 1938 while he was staying in
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
,
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, with
Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...
. It was first published under the title "Palais des beaux arts" (Palace of Fine Arts) in the Spring 1939 issue of ''New Writing'', a
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
magazine edited by
John Lehmann Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (2 June 1907 – 7 April 1987) was an English publisher, poet and man of letters. He founded the periodicals '' New Writing'' and ''The London Magazine'', and the publishing house of John Lehmann Limited. Early ...
. It next appeared in the collected volume of verse ''Another Time'' (New York: Random House, 1940), which was followed four months later by the English edition (London: Faber and Faber, 1940). The museum, however named, is famous for its collection of
Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flour ...
s. When Auden visited the museum he would have seen a number of the paintings of the "
Old Master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...
s" referred to in the second line of the poem, including the ''
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus ''Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'' is a painting in oil paint, oil on canvas measuring now in the Oldmasters Museum (part of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) in Brussels. It was long thought to be by the leading painter of Dutch an ...
'' which at the time was still regarded as an original by
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder ( , ; ; – 9 September 1569) was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaking, printmaker, known for his landscape art, landscape ...
. The poem describes, through the use of Breugel's paintings, humankind's indifference to the suffering of others. The poem's changing titles come from the names used by the museum in Brussels containing the painting. When Auden first published it in 1929 this was "Palais des beaux arts" ("Palace of Fine Arts"), still used as the name of the imposing 19th century museum building. But the museum rebranded itself after World War II as (in French) ''Musée des Beaux Arts'', and Auden's various publishers switched to this name as the title of the poem. Auden's poem begins: "About suffering they were never wrong/The Old Masters...". Possibly taking a hint from Auden, by the 2020s it had been renamed again to the
Oldmasters Museum The Oldmasters Museum (; ) is an art museum in the Royal Quarter of Brussels, Belgium, dedicated to Old Master European painters of the 15th to the 18th centuries, with some later works. It is one of the constituent museums of the Royal Museum ...
, officially expressed in the Belgian bilingual style as ''Musée Oldmasters Museum''. The appropriation and reshaping of the English term
Old Masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...
(''oude meester'' in Dutch, ''vieux maître'' in French) was thought to work well in a Belgian context, and the museum's collection is rich in the Netherlandish paintings from before 1800 for which the term was coined.


Synopsis

Auden's
free verse Free verse is an open form of poetry which does not use a prescribed or regular meter or rhyme and tends to follow the rhythm of natural or irregular speech. Free verse encompasses a large range of poetic form, and the distinction between free ...
poem is divided into two parts, the first of which describes scenes of "suffering" and "dreadful martyrdom" which rarely break into our quotidian routines: "While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully / along." The second half of the poem refers, through the poetic device of
ekphrasis Ekphrasis or ecphrasis (from the Greek) is a rhetorical device indicating the written description of a work of art. It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal description of a visual work of art, either real or imagined. Thus, "an ekphrastic poem ...
, to the painting ''
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus ''Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'' is a painting in oil paint, oil on canvas measuring now in the Oldmasters Museum (part of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) in Brussels. It was long thought to be by the leading painter of Dutch an ...
'' (''c.'' 1560s), at the time thought to be by Bruegel, but now usually regarded as an early copy of a lost work. Auden's description allows us to visualize this specific moment and instance of the indifference of others to a distant individual's suffering, inconsequent to them, "how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster ... the white legs disappearing into the green." The disaster in question is the fall of
Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; , ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of King Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalu ...
, caused by his flying too close to the sun and melting his waxen wings. Auden achieves much in the poem, not only with his long and irregular lines, rhythms, and vernacular phrasing ("dogs go on with their doggy life"), but also with this balance between what appear to be general examples "About suffering" and a specific example of a mythical boy's fall into the sea. Auden scholars and art historians have suggested that the first part of the poem also relies on at least two additional paintings by Bruegel which Auden would have seen in the same second-floor gallery of the museum. These identifications are based on a not quite exact, but nonetheless evocative, series of correspondences between details in the paintings and Auden's language. However, none show a "martyrdom" in the usual sense, suggesting that other works are also evoked. The Bruegels are presented below in the order in which they appear to relate to Auden's lines.


Bruegel's influence

''lines 3–8'': Scott Horton noted that it would be a mistake to only look to the Icarus painting when explaining Auden's poem, for "The bulk of the poem is clearly about a different painting. In fact it is the museum's prize possession: Bruegel's ''
The Census at Bethlehem ''The Census at Bethlehem'' (also known as ''The Numbering at Bethlehem'') is an oil-on-panel painting by the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1566. It is signed and measures ...
'' of 1566, which was acquired by the museum in 1902." The painting depicts Mary and Joseph center right, she on a donkey bundled up for the snow of Bruegel's
Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...
, and he leading with a red hat and long carpenter's saw over his shoulder. They are surrounded by many other people: "someone else ... eating or opening a window or just walking dully / along." And there are children "On a pond at the edge of the wood" spinning tops and lacing on their skates. ''lines 9–13'': '' The Massacre of the Innocents'' is a copy by
Pieter Bruegel the Younger Pieter Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger ( , ; ; between 23 May and 10 October 1564 – between March and May 1638) was a Flemish painter known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work, as well as ...
(1565–1636) of his father's original dated to 1565–7 (illustrated). The museum acquired it in 1830. The scene depicted, again in a wintry Flemish landscape, is recounted in Matthew 2:16–18:
Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...
, when told that a king would be born to the Jews, ordered the Magi to alert him when the king was found. The Magi, warned by an angel, did not and so, "When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under." In relation to the ''Census'' painting then we can see why the children of Auden's poem "did not specially want it he miraculous birthto happen." Both this scene and the earlier are used by Bruegel to make a political comment on the
Spanish Habsburg Habsburg Spain refers to Spain and the Hispanic Monarchy, also known as the Catholic Monarchy, in the period from 1516 to 1700 when it was ruled by kings from the House of Habsburg. In this period the Spanish Empire was at the zenith of its in ...
rulers of Flanders at the time (note the Habsburg coat of arms on the right front of the main building in the ''Census'' and the Spanish troops in red in ''The Massacre'' arresting peasants and knocking down doors). With respect to Auden's language we can see here "the dreadful martyrdom must run its course" (the innocent boys of Herod's wrath are traditionally considered the first of the Christian martyrs). We can see five of those dogs of Auden's poem going about their business and an approximation of "the torturer's horse / Scratches its innocent behind on a tree." Kinney says "Only one torturer's horse stands near a tree, however, and he is unable to rub against it because another soldier, with a battering ram, is standing between the horse and the tree ... Yet this must be the horse Auden has in mind, since it is the only torturer's horse in Bruegel's work, and the only painting with horses near trees." ''lines 14–21'': ''Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'' was acquired in 1912. This is the only known example of Brueghel's use of a scene from mythology. He based his figures and landscape quite closely on the myth of
Daedalus In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ; Greek language, Greek: Δαίδαλος; Latin language, Latin: ''Daedalus''; Etruscan language, Etruscan: ''Taitale'') was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. H ...
and his son
Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; , ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of King Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalu ...
as told by
Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...
in his ''
Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...
'' 8, 183–235. The painting which Auden saw was thought until recently to be an original by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Now it is believed to be based on a lost original of the artist. The painting portrays several men and a ship peacefully performing daily activities in a charming landscape. While this occurs, Icarus is visible in the bottom right hand corner of the picture, his legs splayed at absurd angles, drowning in the water. There is also a Flemish proverb (of the sort imaged in other works by Bruegel): "And the farmer continued to plough..." ("En de boer ... hij ploegde voort") pointing out the indifference of people to fellow men's suffering. ''Philolog'' Blog by Patrick Hunt, posted 9 November 2005.


Cultural legacy

Some years after Auden wrote this poem,
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...
wrote a poem titled "
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus ''Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'' is a painting in oil paint, oil on canvas measuring now in the Oldmasters Museum (part of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) in Brussels. It was long thought to be by the leading painter of Dutch an ...
" about the same painting, and with a similar theme. This poem and the painting ''Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'' appear side-by-side 22 minutes into the 1976 film, ''
The Man Who Fell to Earth ''The Man Who Fell to Earth'' is a 1976 British science fantasy drama film directed by Nicolas Roeg and adapted by Paul Mayersberg. Based on Walter Tevis's 1963 novel of the same name, the film follows an extraterrestrial named Thomas Jerom ...
'', starring
David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...
.


References


External links


Text of the poem
* The British Library'
article on "Musee des Beaux Arts" in its Discovering Literature project (archived on the Wayback Machine)
*
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
br>close read of the poem
integrated into an exploration of Bruegel’s ''Icarus'', by
Elisa Gabbert Elisa Gabbert (born 1979) is an American writer, poet and essayist. She is the author of numerous books and is currently a ''New York Times'' poetry columnist. Biography Gabbert attended Rice University where she studied linguistics and cognitive ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musee des Beaux Arts (poem) Poetry by W. H. Auden 1938 poems Works based on art Poetry based on Metamorphoses Pieter Bruegel the Elder