Visual analysis of painting: “landscape with the fall of Icarus” by Pieter breugel Brent Baggaley

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas measuring 73.5 by 112 centimetres in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. Wikipedia Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder Dimensions: 2′ 5″ x 3′ 8″ Subject: Icarus Medium: Oil paint Locations: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Musée des Beaux-Arts Tournai Genres: Landscape painting, Visionary art

Genre: Historical Painting Intended Audience: The audience is assumed to be familiar with the myth of the Fall of Icarus, from the Roman poet Ovid in his “Metaphophoses” Creators: Text by Ovid; Painting by Pieter Brueghel Rhetorical Purposes: to Describe and Illustrate the story and the landscape To Persuade and Challenge the audience to think differently about this story

In his painting, breughel deliberately avoided foregrounding the figure of Icarus, as other painters such as Herbert draper and Jacob gowy had done.

Instead, Breughel deliberately reduced Icarus to a pair of flailing legs that disappear into the sea, as the rest of the world (the plowman, the ship, etc) go on with their own business.

This powerful painting has successfully communicated its idea theat the world often ignores individual tragedies. In 1938, the English poet W.H. Auden wrote a poem that responded to this painting: 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; 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.

Works Cited page Auden, W. H. “Musee des Beaux Arts.” New Writing, 1939. Brueghel, Pieter. “Landscape with Fall of Icarus” ca. 1590–95, oil on wood (63 by 90 centimetres (25 in × 35 in), Museum van Buuren, Brussels, Belgium Draper, Herbert. “The Lament for Icarus” Gowy, Jacob Peter. “The Fall of Icarus” (1635-7), oil on canvas, 195 x 180 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Wikimedia Commons. Ovid. “Metamorphoses” trans. Anthony Kline. 8 A.D.