Musée des Beaux Arts

“Musée des Beaux Arts” was written by British poet W. H. Auden during a December 1938 stay in Brussels. It was inspired by a collection of Flemish artist Pieter Breughel the Elder’s paintings in Belgium’s Royal Museums of Fine Arts. The poem was first published in the Modernist magazine New Writing (Spring 1939) under the title “Palais des Beaux Arts.” It appeared again in Auden’s book Another Time (1940)—the first written after he emigrated to the United States in 1939. The work collects poems written between 1936 and 1939 and includes “Funeral Blues,” “The Unknown Citizen,” and “Spain 1937,” among other famous works.

“Musée des Beaux Arts” is a free verse poem that displays Auden’s command of traditional formal technique, his humor, and keen powers of observation. It is one of the best known of the 400 poems he wrote during his lifetime. It focuses on the nature of human suffering and perception.

Poet Biography

Wystan Hugh Auden was born on February 21, 1907 in York, England. His father was a physician, and his mother had trained as a missionary nurse. Both were devout Anglicans. The family moved to Birmingham in 1908 when his father was appointed to a medical position in the city.