1 Musee des Beax Arts by W.H. Auden Based on Prepared by Irena Tseitlin

2 Wynstan Hugh Auden Wynstan Hugh Auden is best known as a humanist poet and was a highly regarded scholar. Born in York, England, he attended Oxford University from and wrote several plays and traveled abroad before moving to New York City in 1939, taking U.S. citizenship in He returned to England just before his death.

3 W.H. Auden Musee des Beaux Arts 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 Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman 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.

4 BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder (b. ca. 1525, Breughel, d. 1569, Bruxelles) The Numbering at Bethlehem 1566 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:

5 Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Massacre of the Innocents 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.

6 In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster; The ploughman 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.

7 ABOUT THE PAINTING: Peter Breughel, who lived in the first half of the 16th century in a little country called Belgium. His paintings, in general, have allegorical or moralizing significance. The "Fall of Icarus" was his only mythological subject. In general Breughel accents the figures in his drawings with a delicate line, however, the persons he paints seem stubby and at the same time lively. His contemporaries tended to stick to religious subjects, but brave Peter broke away with his own painting style.

8 background info: Icarus was a Greek mythological figure, also known as the son of Daedalus (famous for the Labyrinth of Crete). Now Icarus and his dad were stuck in Crete, because the King of Crete wouldn't let them leave. Daedalus made some wings for the both of them and gave his son instruction on how to fly (not too close to the sea, the water will soak the wings, and not too close to the sky, the sun will melt them). Icarus, however, appeared to be obstinate and did fly to close to the sun. This caused the wax that held his wings to his body to melt. Icarus crashed into the sea and died.