pieter bruegel fall of icarus

Comment

Comment by alchemistra on April 4, 2009 at 3:05pm

Your analysis here is exceedingly well thought. I can totally see what you are saying about certain elements of this painting. Icarus does seem insignificant, as if it was added as a last minute detail. Consider his position in the painting. Off to the right almost on the edge of the body of the work. Yet somehow the eye is drawn to this spot, the ship nearby being the immediate cause of the tendency for the eye to be directed this way. The rocky ledge on which the single seeing sheep stands is pointing at Icarus as well. The sea is placid except where Icarus plunges, eddies curl around the rocky ledge on which the seeing-sheep stands, but the eddies are also caused by Icarus hitting the water. But really, it's everything! The placing, the seemingly insignificance of it, actually accentuates it highly, making it the focal point in the painting.

I think it's funny that you mention the one sheep. He alone see Icarus. Not entirely sure of the significance of this. I almost want to say this sheep is among the others, but somehow different, because he sees the fall. Does this sheep have awareness of what it is Icarus tried to do, but remains quiet and masquerades as a sheep (notice he is white, not black), when he is really much more? I do think this is very significant.

Now of the black sheep, look closely as there are three. Three is a number is great esoteric significance, in all religions. It represents the supernal triad, or possibly the trinity. The placement of them is rather triangular too. One of them stands next to the man holding a staff, who is looking up to the sky. And what of this character? Notice he has a backpack on. This suggests he is a traveler, a passer-by. But he is also a shepherd as he is tending the flocks. He has his back to Icarus and looks skyward.

All that you have said here regarding the people and the sheep, very true. They just simply are not concerned, they are going about their daily lives. They do not see Icarus, nor do they understand what it is he tried to do. Symbolically, this suggest unawareness and un-enlightenment, to me. Perhaps Icarus failed, but at least he tried. His failure cannot even serve as a lesson to the others in the painting. They no nothing of his quest.

There is much to be considered about the Sun. The sun is clearly going down. It is late in the day, evening approaches. And you have made the observation that it is balanced between day and night or if you like,Yin and Yang. I agree with this totally. It says much about the danger of high noon as you mentioned. The key element is one of balance clearly.

I see the farmer a little differently. He seems a very worldly character. His only concern is to plow the field. His earthly tasks, he does not see Icarus, but he is not looking up as the Shepherd is. He is driving a yoked animal forward, symbolic of his duty, perhaps that of a householder, with obligations to finish his work. He is concerned with the sustenance of the body.

Whereas, the shepherd who also stands on the earth is looking upward to the heavens. Notice also the placement of that shepherd. He stands with the triad of the black sheep mentioned earlier, who represent the trinity or supernal triad.

Your analysis is deeply thought and very enlightening. Everyone gets a little something different when viewing art. Though there are a number of similarities in what we see.

This is a wonderful painting. I have enjoyed this post very much. Thank you for posting it.

Comment by alchemistra on April 3, 2009 at 5:36pm

This is a very interesting analysis of this painting. I will want to read this at length and comment, but I have to break away at the moment.

Comment by Zetetic0void on April 3, 2009 at 5:26pm

part 2... Taken literally, this does not make sense in a way since one would expect the Sun to be high at the top of the painting at this time. What I feel makes sense to me is that Icarus was following his ego to reach heights of greatness and to reach the Sun at it's highest point in the sky but this was in fact following an illusion of what he saw the Sun to represent. He saw the Sun at it's highest point as the ultimate understanding of reality or to follow one's ego to heights of power as the ultimate experience of reality. I feel that the fact that the now fallen Icarus is actually on the same plane as the setting Sun shows that by having one's ego destroyed and being forced to enter a time of reflection (ie, sent into the cave) one can actually attain (attain is the wrong word as it implies one's ego has acted to aquire something) an understanding of the ultimate nature of reality which is represented by the setting Sun and not the SUn at high noon at it's highest and hottest point.

The setting Sun on the horizon is half above and half below the horizon just like Icarus is depicted. The Sun is shown at the boundary between two main expressions of human reality ... day and night. This boundary between high and low, bright and dark, on and off is just like what his father had said. It is the same symbol as flying not to high as to have the Sun melt the wings and not to low as to have be swept up by the waves. Icarus has flown too high and then also been swept up by the waves and so experiences both extremes on either side of the 'middle way' of really understanding.

The Sun on the horizon can even be seen as almost a yin-yang symbol of balance of interaction of mutually-supportive elements. SO just as in the yin-yang, if one accentuates and follows only the white or the dark, one will not be balanced in the middle (actually if one concentrates on either side, one will be forced to be balanced by over-accentuated response in the opposite direction which is just what has happened to Icarus).

If the fallen Icarus can manage to gain certain insight into reality within the cave island, he can afterwards make it to the Sun on the far horizon which is on his same plane now but it won't be an understanding of the Sun as an ultimate power of ego but an understanding of the balance of apparent opposites which in fact are mutually supportive and mutually defining (that is, one can only define power, strength , glory, hottness, brightness, control, freedom, wealth in relation to the opposite qualities and so neither quality is of more or less importance). Th hottness and power of the Sun at high noon is only seen as such because it is not there during the dark of night. So the darkness of night allows the power of the Sun to be described. In the same way, the blankness of a page allows the meaning and importance of the words on a page to be understood. All text and no blank page will be useless to understanding.


The fact that there are only two black sheep makes me almost wonder if they could be seen as pupils in eyes. Could there be some hidden reason or even unintended interpretation of this. I can imagine a sort of face with acertain expression there (combined with the shape of the lines in the plowed field) . Maybe this could represent how Icarus feels at being brought "down to earth" again!


To me, the farmer with horse plowing the field is another symbol of staying in the middle course (which is what his father said he should fly like).




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Anyway, these are just some ideas I get from the painting. To me, the myth of Icarus has a parellel with the Buddhist idea of the middle way and a similar symbolism as the Taoist yin-yang. The ideas I get from the painting may just be what comes to my mind and aren't meant to be any 'real' concrete meanings. I'm sure I will think of other things about this painting in the years to come.

Comment by Zetetic0void on April 3, 2009 at 5:23pm

I wrote a long-winded blurb about this painting once on someone's blog responding to some things they said abut the painting. I'll paste it here.
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You mentioned that in the painting, Icarus is only shown very insignificantly and "only seems like a last minute addition to the painting rather than the main subject". I would say that this in fact is a major point of the painting. By adding the fallen Icarus as a small, insignificant and almost last minute detail just put there, it actually accentuates the idea of his fall even more.

Icarus and his father Daedalus tried to escape the island prison on wings of feathers and wax. Icarus flew too high to the Sun and fell to the water. You can think of this in whatever way you want (literally is rather plain and boring). One way I think of it is based on the ego and the striving for 'greatness'. So the young Icarus goes against his father's advice and is attracted to the greatness of the Sun (maybe he starts to feel he is as great as the Sun) and his ego leads him to where he is confronted by the fact that he is not great (the Sun symbolically can be thought of as the ultimate power as far as living on Earth is concerned)... he followed an illusion that he could attain the greatness of the Sun but the melting wax destroyed the wings which caused him to fall into the water unseen by anyone but one sheep.

You mentioned that the witnesses are larger but in fact there is only one witness in the entire painting. That one sheep on the edge of land is the only being who sees Icarus. Everyone else is going about their day unaware of Icarus which accentuates even more the belittled insignificance of Icarus.

To me, the fact that one sheep sees him is important too. Within human societies, sheep are beings whose lives are guided around not by their whims but by others (the human shepherd using the 'interface' of the dog). At the same time, you can see the obediance of the dog to the human but also the human shepherd (to me at least) appears to be looking up as if to see what the wheather will be (which makes me think of how even he is guided by the ultimate forces of nature outside of his control).In a certain way, the interaction between the shepherd, the dog and sheep is multi-layered. In one way of thinking of it, the sheep are controlled where they go but at that level of their existance they appear to be pointed in various directions eating where they feel like at the moment. One sheep even has enough localized freedom to notice Icarus which is something the shepherd and dog do not see). At another level of the interaction of the sheep, shepherd and dog, the shepherd has apparent control and freedom to make the sheep go where he wants them to. It is multi-layered and can be thought of in many simultaineously interacting layers of interpretation of how reality works for the sheep, shepherd and dog.

Symbolically the sheep represents the idea of being guided here and there which is somewhat opposite to feeling the power of one's own ego giving one the power to do whatever they want (which is ultimately an illusion which Icarus has experienced). To have the symbol of being guided around by controlling forces (sheep) looking at Icarus whose ego has been confounded by reality is an interesting contrast and interaction.

To me, the large ship near Icarus is heading towards the direction of that rocky island with the little cave door. This to me indicates that Icarus will now be going into the cave within his own emotions for some time. After the emotional confrontation that destroyed his belief that his ego was ultimately powerful, he is left in a dark place where over time he will hopefully become aware enough about certain things in order to emerge into the world again.

To my mind there is an interesting symbolic meaning to having the Sun on the far horizon. If taken literally, it seems bizarre to have Icarus just falling into the sea after just having tried t

Comment by alchemistra on April 3, 2009 at 4:30pm

Your funny, funny you should mention that sheep. aha hahahaha! This painting is great.