BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
(b. ca. 1525, Brogel, d. 1569, Brussel)

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (detail)

c. 1555
Oil on canvas, mounted on wood
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

Wearing wings held together with wax, Icarus approached too close to the sun; the wax melted, and Icarus fell into the sea. Bruegel makes him look ridiculous, depicting merely his thrashing legs.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.