Modern Poetry :Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden

Abstract

The poem opens with a very general statement which establishes the distinguishing quality of the first section of the poem (that is, generalization). Auden does this by categorizing all artists of the Renaissance period into one group, “Old Masters.” By disregarding their country of origin, Flemish artist versus Italian painters for instance, and their pictorial depiction, the “common” or “everyday” scenes of many Flemish artists as opposed to the human suffering (or, the suffering of Christ) popular with Italian painters, the poet establishes a broad historical perspective. In doing so, the poem implies a universal truth—that all artists agree upon the significance and understanding of suffering, and as the opening line states, that their perspective is “never wrong.”