Question

Auden's poem and Brueghel's painting each address the same subject. In your opinion, which creates a more powerful emotional response in the reader or viewer? Provide at least two pieces of evidence to support your argument, establishing reasons for your claims. Explain your choice and why the other is less powerful. Use specific details from the poem and the painting to support your arguments

Answer 1

Auden's poem called "Musee des beaux arts" and Brueghel's painting: "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" both address human kind's indifference to suffering.  I think the painting creates a more powerful emotional response in the viewer than the poem.  In the painting the farmer continues to plow while Icarus is falling, something completely out of the ordinary is happening, Icarus symbolizes human failure and the impossibility to fly, which definitely brings suffering, but the farmer continues working.  You can clearly see the farmer's indifference, he is even facing backwards, the viewer cannot see his expression since he is facing backwards.  The painting is very powerful, since you must pay attention to detail to understand it, it is surprising once you understand that the image of Icarus symbolizes failure and suffering, it is a very important mythological event but nobody seems to be paying attention to it.  While reading the poem, I felt it was much more rational and did not show the farmer's indifference, it does not involve the reader in the way the painting involves the viewer.