Tag Archives: Icarus

Art and human suffering

. In my March 2022 post Falling Man, I contemplated on the tension between art and human suffering; how art may ignore suffering or even exploit it.  Here Auden’s poem “Museé des Beaux Arts” brought out the conflict in sharp contour with sarcasm and biting wit. Recall that the poem was inspired by that famous … Continue reading

Falling Man

. This is the picture I took several years ago in MOMA’s courtyard.  Five women chatting, oblivious to the monstrous event right in front of their eyes. A friend recently commented on my photograph: that it reminds him of Auden’s poem “Museé des Beaux Arts,” an ekphrastic treatment of Breughel’s ‘Icarus.’  All three, Auden’s poem, … Continue reading


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