Pieter Bruegel - Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus... Where Is Icarus?

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Pieter Bruegel - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus... Where is Icarus?

( question: Where is Icarus ? ... )

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas (73.5 by 112 centimetres (28.9 × 44 in)) long thought to be by Pieter Bruegel, although following technical examinations in 1996, that attribution is regarded as very doubtful, and it is now seen as a good early copy by an unknown artist of Bruegel's original, perhaps painted in the 1560s.

Largely derived from Ovid, the painting itself became the subject of a poem of the same name by William Carlos Williams, and is described in W. H. Auden's famous poem Musée des Beaux-Arts, named after the museum in which the painting is housed in Brussels.

Pieter Bruegel - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, 1560, ( Detail )Landscape With The Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams According to Brueghelwhen Icarus fellit was springa farmer was ploughinghis fieldthe whole pageantryof the year wasawake tinglingnearthe edge of the seaconcerned with itselfsweating in the sunthat meltedthe wings' waxunsignificantlyoff the coastthere wasa splash quite unnoticedthis wasIcarus drowning.

"Landscape with The Fall of Icarus", ca. 1590-95, oil on wood (63 by 90 centimetres / 25 in × 35 in), Circle of P.Bruegel the Elder,Museum van Buuren, Brussels, Belgium.

In Greek mythology, Icarus succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father Daedalus, using feathers secured with wax. 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.

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", which is not entirely the impression given in the painting. The shepherd gazing into the air, away from the ship, may be explained by another version of the composition (see below); in the original work there was probably also a figure of Daedalus in the sky to the left, at which he stares. There is also a Flemish proverb (of the sort imaged in other works by Bruegel): "And the farmer continued to plough..." (En de boer ... hij ploegde voort") pointing out the ignorance of people to fellow men's suffering. 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.Though landscape paintings with the title subject represented by small figures in the distance were an established type in Early Netherlandish painting, pioneered by Joachim Patiner, to have a much larger unrelated "genre" figure in the foreground is original and represents something of a blow against the emerging hierarchy of genres.

Other landscapes by Bruegel, for example The Hunters in the Snow (1565) and others in that series of paintings showing the seasons, show genre figures in a raised foreground, but not so large relative to the size of the image, nor with a subject from a "higher" class of painting in the background.

Icarus I ( detail )

The painting is probably a version of a lost original by Bruegel, however, probably from the 1560s or soon after. It is in oils whereas Bruegel's other paintings on canvas are in tempera.

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. He also produced a design for an engraving with the ship and the two falling figures.

Icarus and the angler

Since its acquisition by the Museum in 1912, its authenticity has been controverted by several specialists, mainly for two reasons: (i) its weaker quality due to 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. In 1998, a mixed team of scientists from the Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage and the University of Utrecht attempted to solve the authenticity problem by a radiocarbon dating of the canvas that was supposed to be the original support. As mentioned here above, the conclusion of this dating was that P. Bruegel the Elder cannot have painted on this canvas. Later, in 2006, Prof. J. Reisse (Université libre de Bruxelles) demonstrated that this dating was worthless for technical arguments.

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:

The upturned face in the bushes

Canvas (from transposition);
Oily lead white (adhesive);
Thick oily layer with azurite (repaint);
Chalk ground;
Oily lead white with scarce particles of charcoal;
Oily blue with azurite;

with layers 4 to 6 being original.

The upturned face in the bushes - Infrared reflectography

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. Reflectography is based on the fact that the infrared light penetrates all colors except black. As a result, the drawing, mostly black can be made visible. The interpretation of these reflectograms is of course more subjective, but in a global way, the drawing from theFall of Icarus is not really different from other certified works from Peter Bruegel the Elder. This drawing is generally limited to a layout of the elements. Probably because the thin, weakly covering paint on white ground would hide imperfectly a detailed graphism. A re-interpretation of the reflectograms in agreement with the other analysis would lead to the following conclusion: The Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, from the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels is an oil painting on panel, transposed on 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 inconceivable 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 Peter Bruegel neither Father or Son.

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.

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:

Musée des Beaux Arts, a poem by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,The Old Masters: how well they understoodIts human position; how it takes placeWhile someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waitingFor the miraculous birth, there always must beChildren who did not specially want it to happen, skatingOn a pond at the edge of the wood:They never forgotThat even the dreadful martyrdom must run its courseAnyhow in a corner, some untidy spotWhere the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horseScratches its innocent behind on a tree.In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns awayQuite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman mayHave heard the splash, the forsaken cry,But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shoneAs it had to on the white legs disappearing into the greenWater; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seenSomething amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas (73.5 by 112 centimetres (28.9 × 44 in)) long thought to be by Pieter Bruegel, although following technical examinations in 1996, that attribution is regarded as very doubtful, and it is now seen as a good early copy by an unknown artist of Bruegel's original, perhaps painted in the 1560s.About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.Copyright © 1976 by Edward Mendelson, William Meredith and Monroe K. Spears, Executors of the Estate of W. H. Auden."In three words I can sum up everything I've learned in life: It goes on." -Robert FrostABOUT THE POEM:meaning:The basic premise of the poem is response to tragedy, or as the song goes "Obla Di, Obla Da, Life Goes On." The title refers to the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels. Auden visited the museum in 1938 and viewed the painting by Brueghel, which the poem is basically about. Generalizing at first, and then going into specifics the poem theme is the apathy with which humans view individual suffering.Auden wrote that "In so far as poetry, or any of the arts, can be said to have an ulterior purpose, it is, by telling the truth, to disenchant and disintoxicate."The poem juxtaposes ordinary events and exraordinary ones, although extraordinary events seem to deflate to everyday ones with his descriptions. Life goes on while a "miraculous birth occurs", but also while "the disaster" of Icarus's death happens.background info:For those cultural barbarians who don't know the story of Icarus, here it is, in condensed form. Icarus was a Greek mythological figure, also known as the son of Daedalus (famous for the Labyrinth of Crete). Now Icarus and his dad were stuck in Crete, because the King of Crete wouldn't let them leave. Daedalus made some wings for the both of them and gave his son instruction on how to fly (not too close to the sea, the water will soak the wings, and not too close to the sky, the sun will melt them). Icarus, however, appeared to be obstinate and did fly to close to the sun. This caused the wax that held his wings to his body to melt. Icarus crashed into the sea and died.hints:Some have even claimed to find hints of Auden's eventual reconversion to Christiantiy in the poem. Richard Johnson, author of "Man's Place: An Essay on Auden", believes there is a touch of Christian awareness in the poem, especially the timeline. The reader of the poem is placed in front of the Breughel painting in a museum, and at the same time is expected to project those images and truths to the world outside. There is also a sort of continuity through the poem as you read it and are allowed to see what the poet means. This allows a reader to become aware of his human position.The poem first discusses a "miraculous birth", and at the end "the tragedy" of a death. The theme in the poem is human suffering. If you add these things together, and stir really well you might even get some hints at religion, mainly at Christianity Also, the poem suggest a religious acceptance of suffering (example: eating your morning breakfast while watching coverage of a serious trainwreck on CNN). Religious acceptance basically means coming to terms with the ways of the world.

ABOUT THE PAINTING:the artist:Peter Breughel, who lived in the first half of the 16th century in a little country called Belgium. His paintings, in general, have allegorical or moralizing significance. The "Fall of Icarus" was his only mythological subject. In general Breughel accents the figures in his drawings with a delicate line, however, the persons he paints seem stubby and at the same time lively. His contemporaries tended to stick to religious subjects, but brave Peter broke away with his own painting style.the painting:Auden's poem settles a bit heavy on the stomach. The subject matter is taken very seriously and his views are expressed. However, it is fair to argue that Breughel's painting doesn't take it so serisouly. Look closely at the ship on the right, can you see the legs sticking out of the ocean water? It flopping every which way. It could be argued that the fall of Icarus is therefore portrayed as humorous by Breughel. Or Breughel mean to portray the Icarus event as non-significant to make the point of the painting stronger: apathy of human suffering?

Pieter Bruegel - Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus... Where Is Icarus?

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