Musee des Beaux Arts
Page 36-38
Amanda Rekoutis
2.
Auden Argument is
“The old masters were never wrong about suffering.”
3.
He begins with
the general statement and moves more and more into specifics into the picture.
4.
We don’t think of
other peoples suffering and we don’t consider it as much as we should, that’s
what he’s trying to say. The old masters knew how to portray human pain and
suffering.
5.
He makes his
argument by saying that everyone turned away from the drowning of the boy.
6.
Yes he provides
evidence by using examples like the plough man that could have heard the splash
and the cry or the ship that had somewhere to be and sailed on.
7.
The title means
museum of beautiful art obviously it’s in French.
8.
Yes Musse looks
like museum and beaux apparently looks like beautiful.
9.
The old masters
are the old artists. It’s capitalized because it is important. I can find out
more by researching it on my own.
10. Brueghel’s Icarus is a painting that shows a young man
drowning with no one helping him or even acknowledging that he is there.
11. He moves through the poem by being general and then
getting more specific. Starting with his general statement and then using
examples from the painting.
12. Yes I agree because I feel that we are well aware that
people suffer every day and yet we turn a blind eye and do nothing to help
them. For example, all of the kids in Africa who have no water or even food and
I know that there are programs and donations to help but a lot of people don’t
even think about it during their day.
13. I think with Auden being alive around world war two,
he was right in the middle of major suffering and I think that effected what he
says. Because obviously the entire German race knew what was going on and yet
they kept quiet. Living in the 30’s totally affected his views on suffering. We
couldn’t even grasp how emaciated the Jews were when they left concentration
camps and he was there to witness it firsthand.
14. He says the old masters are never wrong when they
display suffering because they are very observant of that and they are very
concerned about the humanities and how everyone is affected by it and they know
every detail of it enough to portray it exactly how it is and how it
should be.
15. This says that the old masters are considered great
because they are able to portray and notice the suffering that goes on around
them when everyone else turns away from it and pretends that they don’t see it.
This is the case because like I said, they observe it and know the ins and outs
of suffering so they are experts.
16. Yes being in a museum affects his views because he is
seeing the art of the old masters and those are the ones that he thinks are the
greatest artists of all time, which they were, that’s why they are in the
museum, and so he is swayed by the way they paint.
17. He uses the painting for examples since there are
great examples in the painting of people ignoring suffering while suffering is
going on.
18. I think there might be historical similarities that
connect Auden’s views to the old masters’ views. For example, Auden was around
during world war two and the death and dying but the old masters were around
when the world wasn’t extremely evolved yet and they didn’t really know how to
get the best out of life. So the quality of life wasn’t very good. I’m sure the
masters looked around and saw suffering in the street every day with poor
people and people who needed food.
19. I think that if Auden hadn’t have been alive in the 30’s,
that would have made a difference in the way he did interpret the old masters because
he wouldn’t have been right in the middle of so much pain and suffering and
maybe he wouldn’t have known any better.
20. Painting can be read by how our eye moves through the
picture and what the images we see tell us about the picture by how we
interpret them. The details in a painting help us distinguish and add more
clues to the story that we have created in our minds.
21. By looking at the title, we would expect to see a
falling of someone or something named Icarus. We really see a scene that looks
like normal town life until you notice the legs that are disappearing into the
water at the side of the picture. To me, the plough man and the field at the “front”
of the picture dominates it because it is closest to the “seer” and it is the
largest subject.
22. I feel that the picture is not symmetrically balanced
and that helps the way your eye moves through the piece, finally landing on the
legs of Icarus and that is how the painting wants me to “see” Icarus. Icarus,
though, is actually hard to notice because he is so small. But the way the
light color of the legs stands out in the dark of the water makes me know that I
am to notice him. I think he is so small because that is the point of people
ignoring suffering. The old masters wanted to prove that people don’t notice
and made him something of a “Can you see what I see” thing.
23. The people in the painting appear that they don’t know
someone is drowning at all. They are carrying on as if they don’t see him and
no one appears to be on the verge of helping him. This matches perfectly with
what Auden says. I think this means that he read the painting very well because
he knows what he is talking about. I also think Brueghel’s context is great for
the painting because of the historical and cultural connections it makes.
24. I don’t know if his interpretation was correct because
I had no idea it was a story so I would need to go look up the poem and try to
figure out what it was about and see if my interpretation of the poem matched the
one that Brueghel himself had.
25. The main difference I can see is that I don’t see the father
in the sky in front of Icarus with his own wings on. I also can see the
feathers but there would be no way to assume that the feathers were from the
boy himself, flying on wings that his father made.
26. Ovid’s view is so different because humans and human
nature was so different 1600 years ago and we or even Brueghel couldn’t relate
to him because we live in different time periods than Ovid did.
27. I have no idea what was happening in the first century
when Ovid wrote so I don’t know how it would affect his story telling. Maybe something
to do with the Spartans? I don’t know but it would change the meaning of the
picture by how people saw death at that time.
28. I like the picture personally and I don’t think I would
notice the legs right off the bat and if I did I wouldn’t connect them to some
sinister meaning. Obviously I would know that person was drowning but I wouldn’t
put a story behind it. Or even really think about it (point proven by Auden).
29. I think overall yes, I am confused. I don’t remember
who wrote the poem, I don’t know who wrote the article in my textbook, I don’t know
who painted the painting. And I am
confused why all of this is connected. I think its cool how it is and how one
person comments on another person’s work but I am a little confused.
30. I would agree with the author and say that no one pays
attention to suffering and pain. But I haven’t studied the old masters work
enough to agree that they understood it best.
31. I assume that because the poem was written around
World War II that he was mainly focusing on suffering and pain but what if the
boy was fine with dying? Maybe he didn’t suffer. How are we to know?
No comments:
Post a Comment