Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Description

In Greek mythology, Icarus succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father Daedalus, using feathers secured with beeswax. Ignoring his father's warnings, Icarus chose to fly too close to the Sun, melting the wax, and fell into the sea and drowned. His legs can be seen in the water just below the ship. The Sun, already half-set on the horizon, is a long way away; the flight did not reach anywhere near it. Daedalus does not appear in this version of the painting, though he does, still flying, in the van Buuren one (see left).

The ploughman, shepherd and angler are mentioned in Ovid's account of the legend; they are: "astonished and think to see gods approaching them through the aether", The painting may, as Auden's poem suggests, depict humankind's indifference to suffering by highlighting the ordinary events which continue to occur, despite the unobserved death of Icarus.

Attribution

The painting is probably a version of a lost original by Bruegel. A date of has been suggested for the lost original, based on Bruegel's other works;

The work was unknown until it was bought by the museum in 1912; subsequently another version on panel, generally considered inferior, turned up, which was acquired in 1953 by Daniel van Buuren for his private house, today a museum in Brussels. In this, which excludes the far left and right sides of the composition, Icarus is in the water but Daedelus is still in the air, and the shepherd's gaze is directed at him, explaining one aspect of the composition of the other version. The original would have been Bruegel's only known painting of a mythological subject. The perspective of the ship and figures is not entirely consistent, although this may enhance the power of the composition. Bruegel also produced a design for an engraving with the ship and the two falling figures.

Since its acquisition by the Museum in 1912, its authenticity has been challenged by several specialists, mainly for two reasons: (i) the relatively weak quality of the painting compared to other Bruegels, although this question is complicated by later overpainting; (ii) it is an oil painting on canvas, an exception in the work of Peter Bruegel the Elder who made all his oil paintings on panel.

In 1963, Philippe Roberts-Jones, curator at the museum, and the Bruegel specialist Georges Marlier, hypothesized that an original panel painting had been later moved onto canvas, as was once common.

Scientific tests

In 1998, a mixed team of scientists from the Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage and the University of Utrecht

A sample of blue paint taken from the right edge in 1973 was re-examined by performing analysis such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled to the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), which in connection with optical microscopy revealed the following structure and composition. From bottom to top:

1. Canvas (from transposition);
2. Oily lead white (adhesive);
3. Thick oily layer with azurite (repaint);
4. Chalk ground;
5. Oily lead white with scarce particles of charcoal;
6. Oily blue with azurite; with layers 4 to 6 being original.

The presence of chalk ground under the original blue proves that this is a panel painting transposed on a canvas. The original blue layer is lead white with azurite containing a few grains of ochre and charcoal. These structure and composition match perfectly those found on other certified panels of Peter Bruegel. Moreover, it is noticeable that the wood charcoal particles are very peculiar, being very long and acicular, exactly the same as those found only in The Census from the same Museum.

Recently, a study of the underdrawing using infrared reflectography has been published.{{cite book

A re-interpretation of the reflectograms in agreement with the other analysis suggested the conclusion that the work in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels is a panel painting transferred to canvas. The paint layer and maybe also the underdrawing have been severely damaged by this intervention as well as by two more relinings, responsible for the heavy overpainting. In the paint sample remains a fragment with structure and composition matching perfectly the technique of the large panels attributed to Peter Bruegel the Elder. It is therefore unlikely that this version of the Fall of Icarus might be from the hand of a copyist, except perhaps from P. Bruegel the Younger. Conversely, the Van Buuren copy with a different technique cannot be attributed to either Peter Bruegel.

Mentions in other media

The painting is the subject of W. H. Auden's poem of 1938, "Musée des Beaux-Arts", in which Icarus's fall is perceived by the ploughman as "not an important failure". It was also the subject of William Carlos Williams's poem of 1962, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" with "a splash quite unnoticed."

The painting is shown in Nicolas Roeg's film The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), where a character opens a book of paintings to an image of it. On the facing page a description points out that the scene remains calm, the event of the fall hardly noticed. The painting also figures into the Walter Tevis novel on which the film is based. The characters of Newton and Bryce discuss the painting near the end of chapter four, part two. Tevis also mentions the painting in his 1980 novel Mockingbird. In chapter five of the first section narrated by the character Mary Lou, the robot Spofforth brings the painting to her.

Eric Steele, whose film The Bridge (2006) documents the suicides of two-dozen people who jumped off the world's most popular suicide site – the Golden Gate Bridge – throughout 2004, has compared images captured in his documentary to those of Bruegel's Landscape With the Fall of Icarus, because the fatal leaps go almost unnoticed by passersby.

Composer Brian Ferneyhough's 1988 chamber work La Chute d'Icare was inspired by the painting:

The painting features prominently in Frank Ceruzzi's dystopian play Round Went the Wheel (2019), where children take control of the world and use the painting and the Icarus myth as a way to teach the adult population about hubris and the dangers of technology. The painting was included in the 1980 television series 100 Great Paintings.

The painting is also the subject of the Titus Andronicus song "Upon Viewing Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus":In the painting from the original song, in the corner, you see this tiny guy falling into the ocean. It's been interpreted as: It's a big world, and people go about their business, and little tragedies are happening all the time, and what are you going to do?

— Patrick Stickles, Titus Andronicus

The painting appears in a background of the music video for the song "Blood Sweat & Tears" by South Korean group BTS. The video opens in a museum with another Bruegel painting, The Fall of the Rebel Angels featured prominently.

The painting is mentioned in show The Good Fight (Season 6) and a fragment of it is shown full screen.

The painting is an important plot point in the 2025 novel by Wally Lamb, The River Is Waiting.

References

References

1. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. "Description détaillée".
2. (2003). "Bruegel's "Fall of Icarus": Ovid or Solomon?". Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties.
3. Rico, 19 (gives text)
4. Hagen, Rose-Marie and Rainer; ''What Great Paintings Say'', vol. 1, 265, 2005, 2 vols., Taschen, {{ISBN. 9783822847909
5. Hunt, Patrick. "Ekphrasis or Not? Ovid (Met. 8.183-235 ) in Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus".
6. de Vries:4
7. (2001). "Bruegel, The Complete Paintings". Midpoint Press.
8. (2006). "La chute d'Icare: mise au point et controverse". Bull. Académie Royale de Belgique.
9. (2002). "Bruegel's ''Fall of Icarus'' at the Laboratory".
10. Holden, Stephen. (27 October 2006). "NYT Critics' Pick – The Bridge (2006): That Beautiful but Deadly San Francisco Span". The New York Times.
11. "''La Chute d'Icare'' (program note)". Edition Peters.
12. (12 November 2012). "Titus Andronicus".
13. (October 6, 2016). "BTS (방탄소년단) '피 땀 눈물 (Blood Sweat & Tears)' Official MV".