The Analysis of Musee des Beaux Arts

Analyzed by: Edy “Zedink” Hidayat

Musée des Beaux Arts (1938)
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

THEME

The theme of Auden’s poem Musée des Beaux Arts, created in 1938, is apathy in which to show that there are too many people who do not care about every event in their life which is none of their business. Auden uses an allusion of Christian history, the birth of Jesus, and Greek mythology, Icarus, to describe the theme and also to make a situational irony in this poem.

CONTENT

From the first stanza, we found that Auden mentions the old masters, About suffering they were never wrong/The Old Masters: how well they understood/Its human position, but who or what are the old masters? From Wikipedia, we found that an old master is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such a painter. So, we can conclude that the old masters are they who worked as a painter in Europe before about 1800. And he states that about suffering they were never wrong, what does it mean? It means that the old masters were very aware of humanity aspect such as suffering. Then he asks, how it takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; without question mark as if he doesn’t need the answer to remind us, the readers, about the human position in our daily life.

In the second stanza, Auden asks—and seem does not need to be answered again—How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting/For the miraculous birth, there always must be/Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating /On a pond at the edge of the wood. Who are ‘the aged’ and what is ‘the miraculous birth’ and why does he compare ‘the children’ with ‘the aged’? The aged are the old people who have so many experiences in their life. The miraculous birth is the birth of Jesus—miraculous because he was born by a virgin, Mary. The aged are waiting for the birth because they are full of experience of the evil deeds in this world, and hoping that the birth of Jesus the messiah would bring peace to the world. But, in contrast with, the children are they who are lacked in experience; they do not know much about life, which is right and which is wrong, so, they don’t wait to that special moment because they think it’s just an usual event; a mother bears a son—a virgin mother though. He illustrates this children apathy by skating on a pond at the edge of the wood.

Then, still in the second stanza, he adds, They never forgot/That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course/Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot/Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse /Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. They, here, refer to the old masters. It means that the old masters, for they are so aware of human position, never forgot that even there’s a martyrdom, anyhow in a corner, in some untidy spot, they still showed the innocent of animals (the dogs and the torturer’s horse) in the painting—in which this refers to the painting of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Massacre of Innocents.

In the last stanza, Auden writes, In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away/Quite leisurely from the disaster. In this, he tries to figure out the apathy of people by another Brueghel’s painting, The Fall of Icarus. Then he adds his own opinion; the plowman may/Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry/But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone/As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green/Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen/Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,/Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. Here, he tries to include another story, the Greek mythology, Icarus, to show the human apathy; the plowman and the ship may have seen or even have heard the falling of Icarus, but for them, it’s just an usual thing because they think, those who are able to fly must not be a human, it’s a kind of God—in Greek, Gods are figured as human—and they cannot die, moreover, it’s none of their business taking care to the falling boy.

As to conclude, Auden uses two different stories to bring his readers into a full understanding about human apathy and to compare the stories to their daily life.

The Fall Of Icarus

By Bruegel

IMAGERY

Even though this poem uses paintings as an object to prove or to support the theme, Auden just uses a few of imageries, they are: a) visual imagery; white legs; the green water; and the expensive delicate ship, and b) auditory imagery; the forsaken cry.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Personification

Personification consists of giving attributes of a human being to an animal, an object, or a concept. In this poem, the personifications are: a) the torturer’s horse scratches its innocent behind on a tree that means the horse acts as if it was a human by scratching its innocent, and b) the expensive delicate ship that must have seen something amazing that means the ship has eyes to see an event of life as if it was a human.

Irony

This poem is using situational irony because there’s a discrepancy exists between the actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate or between what one anticipates and what actually comes to pass. We can see it from the second stanza, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting/For the miraculous birth, there always must be/Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating /On a pond at the edge of the wood, while some people were waiting for the miraculous event—something amazing that should have to get more attention—but the others seemed not to take care at all, and from the last stanza, the plowman may/Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry/But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone/As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green/Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen/Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,/Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on, that as a human, we must help another who is in a danger or in an unexpected situation, but in this poem—based on the painting—shows the vice versa in which there’s nobody helped the drowning Icarus, although they may have heard his cry and the splash when he fell into the green water.

Allusions

An allusion is a brief, usually indirect reference to another work or to a real or historical event or person, traditionally as a way of drawing connections between those elements as well as enriching the meaning of the current work through associations with the other. Allusions imply a shared cultural experience or at least understanding. Auden successfully expands the theme of Musée des Beaux Arts by using an allusion. Here are the allusions:

a) The old masters and Pieter Brueghel the elder

the old masters are they who worked as a painter in Europe before about 1800. They are the artists in renaissance era who began with Leonardo da Vinci’s era. Pieter Brueghel the elder is one of the artists. He, born in c.1525 – September 9, 1569, is a Flemish/Dutch Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is nicknamed 'Peasant Brueghel' to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which "Brueghel" is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and started signing his paintings as Bruegel. His paintings such as, The Fall of Icarus, Massacre of Innocents, and Numbering at Bethlehem are the most influences of Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts.

b) The miraculous birth and The dreadful martyrdom

The miraculous birth is the birth of Jesus the messiah. This called miraculous because the mother who bore Jesus is a virgin, Mary. This is noted in bible like this, And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. "And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God. "And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. "For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38; NASB). The dreadful martyrdom is one of Christian tragedy in which the Christians were threatened by. This relates to the paintings of Bruegel, Massacre of Innocents and Numbering at Bethelehem.

c) Icarus

Icarus was a son of Daedalus, a great architect. He, Daedalus, built king Minos a labyrinth, but the king then lost favor to him. So, his son, Icarus, and he were imprisoned into the labyrinth by king Minos. To make a great escape, Daedalus used his ability to create artificial wings. He taught and reminded his son to fly in medium height because if it was too high; the sun would melt the wax, and if it was too low; it would be broken by the wave. But, Icarus was overjoyed because he could fly and he got nearer to the sun. The sun melted the wax of the wings and then he fell to the sea.