In one of the more recognizable poems from this collection, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," the prolific poet and physician William Carlos Williams designs an ekphrastic lyric based on the Brueghel painting by the same name. Acting as the final poem of the book, it ends with the line: "a splash quite unnoticed / this was Icarus drowning."
The "unnoticed" fall of Icarus is emblematic of society's disregard for those dreamy creatures such as poets, who fly above the crowd in their imaginary ether and then plummet to earth with barely a "splash."
During most of his poetic lifetime, Williams experienced a similar Icarus-anonymity. For years, his work and reputation had been overshadowed by his old friend and contemporary, Ezra Pound. With publication of Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, Williams made more than a little splash. The collection would receive the highest literary honors in 1962, just a year before his death, when it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The poetic reputation of this American icon was finally on the rise, gaining recognition among younger poets in large part because of Pictures from Brueghel.
Why Brueghel?
Ten of the poems in Pictures from Brughel can be classified as ekphrastic with a single focus on paintings by that Flemish artist of the Renaissance, Petr Brueghel. Known for his depictions of peasants, Brueghel was portraying more than idyllic scenes and pastimes. Many of the pastoral activities carry an undercurrent of violence. With just a few cursory lines, Williams was able to fix the bluntness of Brueghel's peasants into print.
In one of the more interesting poems, “Haymaking,” the poet comments on the painter as well as the painting. In a poetic insight, Williams claims an artistic victory for the artist who keeps his inner eye regardless of the demands of the current age.
The lines can be easily transferred to the poet’s own resistance to Imagism, dismissing a movement heavily flavored with classical allusions and extraordinary references. Williams was more the Modernist; more the painter of the familiar than the foreign; more a man of the masses than the aristocrats. In this way, Williams was similar to Brueghel.
Interspersed in the poem are these lines which make that statement:
The living quality of
the man’s mind
stands out
and its covert assertions
for art, art, art!
painting
that the Renaissance
tried to absorb
but
it remained a wheat field
over which the
wind played
men with scythes tumbling
the wheat in
rows
the gleaners already busy
it was his own
magpies
the patient horses no one
could take that
from him
Williams’ thought lifted itself out of the painting, as if the click of recognition had greater precedence than any rendering of oils on canvas. Williams’ words give living space to his “no ideas but in things” - because this is exactly what he did - used the thing (the painting) to express his idea, albeit lacking subtlety.
Reference: Williams, William Carlos. Pictures from Brueghel and other poems. New York: A New Directions Book, 1962.
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