User:Toby Decker

[[File:Thetriumphofdeath.jpg|right]]In contrast to the cubist/modernist approach, which renders truth from varying yet stark perspectives, the cover image of Penguin Classic's [http://www.amazon.com/Waste-Other-Poems-Penguin-Classics/dp/014243731X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355188736&sr=8-1&keywords=the+wasteland+and+other+poems+2003 reprinting of "The Waste Land"] incorporates Pieter Bruegel's "The Triumph of Death" on its book cover.  The differences between Delaunay's and Bruegel's paintings are remarkable, though Bruegel's work does not inherently controvert textual content.  The editor's choice to use Bruegel's painting to market "The Waste Land" is obviously influenced by themes consistent with the poem.  However, when comparing the work of Delaunay and Bruegel it becomes apparent that the editorial choice concerning which image to use reflects strongly on the editor's perception of the poem.  For instance, though Delaunay's work is not "true to life," it does maintain sufficient pragmatism to assure a level of certainty for the viewer.  In "The Triumph of Death" the image is so absurd, filled with ambiguous yet disturbing symbology, that the viewer is left disoriented and perhaps disenchanted before he or she has considered the text within.   

Penguin's choice to use Bruegel's painting for its Waste Land cover reveals an editorial perception that death and iconography are perhaps the most essential aspects of the poem.  Bruegel's painting depicts a battle in which death, personified as a militia of skeletons, overwhelms a force of men. The Triumph of Death was painted more than three hundred years before Eliot wrote The Waste Land, well before the introduction of abstraction in the field of visual art.  Whereas Delaunay paints a single image from a variety of different perspectives, Bruegel paints a single scene; nevertheless, Bruegel also challenge the viewer's experience by creating several different scenes within his single panel. The viewer is challenged to consider several different images, or "perspectives" at once.   

Therefore, Bruegel unashamedly transports the viewer of the painting into a world of chaos and terror, evoking more violent reactions of disgust and hopelessness.  Rather than allowing the reader to enter the world of the Waste Land on gradual terms, the editor thrusts the reader into the thick of the poem's least palatable material.  The image is reticent of lines further into the text of the poem ("Part V:Death by Water"):