![]() ![]() ~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), American poet and practicing physicianĬONTEMPLATION Each day this month we take the time for some quiet contemplation, guided by poetry. (See the post of September 10, Grain Harvest. William Carlos Williams also wrote about this painting of Icarus, one of ten poems he composed about the works of Bruegel the Elder. Auden (1907-1973), English-born American poet and essayist Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Water and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Quite leisurely from the disaster the ploughman mayīut for him it was not an important failure the sun shoneĪs it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course ![]() How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waitingįor the miraculous birth, there always must beĬhildren who did not specially want it to happen, skating While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along Witnesses can be blind to the human suffering around them. At the center of Christ Carrying the Cross, there is great suffering as “the dreadful martyrdom must run its course.” In The Census of Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph arrive to record their names, just before “the miraculous birth” of Jesus. In Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, the ploughman and the others are oblivious to the flailing limbs of the drowning man (at the bottom right corner of the painting). In these three paintings, Bruegel shows how life goes on for the crowds - even in the midst of great drama. ( Christ Carrying the Cross by Pieter Bruegel the Elder) ( The Census at Bethlehem by Pieter Bruegel the Elder) He begins by alluding to two other paintings by Bruegel: Auden wrote a poem about this picture after a visit to the Museum of Beaux Arts in Brussels in 1938. ( Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel ![]() Or a ploughman resting on the handles of his plough. Some angler catching his fish with a quivering rod, He includes details from the description of the scene in Metamorphoses : Pieter Bruegel (or Brueghel) the Elder’s painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is this Dutch painter's version of the well-known tale. But Icarus climbed too high and the wax melted and he fell to the sea and drowned. He cautioned his son not to fly too close over the sea, the feathers would get drenched, and not to fly too close to the sun, the wax would melt. To escape to Sicily, Daedalus made two pairs of wings from feathers and wax. One of the myths Ovid tells is the story of Icarus and his father, Daedalus, a great Athenian artisan. It was a 15-volume collection of Greek and Roman myths narrating the history of the world, from its beginnings up to the deification of Julius Caesar and the reign of Augustus. 17 or 18) published his great poem Metamorphoses around A.D.
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