Beauty in the Breakdown

The Lament for Icarus

He is dead. I remember the story of this boy from childhood. In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of Dædalus, a great inventor and craftsman. King Minos imprisoned Icarus and his father in the Labyrinth after Dædalus helped Theseus kill the Minotaur and escape with the princess Ariadne. Since King Minos controlled all means of escape by land and by sea, Dædalus fashioned a pair of wings for both him and Icarus out of candle wax and pillow feathers that they might fly out of the King’s clutches. Upon their departure, and against the warning of his father, Icarus became elated with freedom and soared as high as he could, only to have the sun melt the wax in his wings.

And now he is dead. Herbert James Draper manages to capture this scene with grace, beauty, and sensitivity in his painting The Lament for Icarus. Usually when I observe art, such as a painting, poem, or song, I look for the definite, set in stone meaning defined by the artist. This time, however, I endeavored for something different; I needed to know what it meant to me. So I quizzed the painting:What does Icarus’ final pose say? What motivation do the Nymphs have? Do light, shadow, and color add any meaning? Only after I discover these things for myself can I give the painting a definition and decide how objective that definition is.

In the painting, Icarus’ corpse lies limp and unscathed on a boulder in the middle of a mudded blue green sea, his wings of paradise spread about him in a downey bed. He wears the rags of a prisoner around his waist, a narrow sheet of white with a scarlet stripe. Bolstered to the wings, his arms hang flaccid. His legs dangle into a black shadow, perhaps foreshadowing the fate of his body. His head rests upon his shoulder, turned away, as though he had merely fallen asleep, though his face would say he was dreaming painfully.

Around him are three nymphs, two behind him and one below, all in lament for his youth and beauty. One of the nymphs behind him holds his body as though comforting whatever part of his soul may be left. Or perhaps she is sensitively assisting his body to fall into the sea before the gulls deface his last perfect image. She is his final mother. Behind her is her sister carrying a harp to accompany her as she sings a farewell song. They flock around him confused and distraught as though they had never been so close to death before; it is not just anything that can stop a nymph from her dance.

The third nymph does not get too close to Icarus; she is curious but mourns from a distance. She is not as overwrought as her friends as she has seen this pity before – a death by ambition by one so young. So instead of fondling his remains, she looks on him solemnly, the knowledge of death being her one regret of eternal life.

Behind this scene, the sun shows it’s last rays of the day on the sea cliffs, emphasizing the celerity of time.

Draper’s use of hue also emulates this transience. The colors of death permeate through the entire image almost as though the sun had scorched all it saw, besides the nymphs who were safe under the water. What should be the white cliffs of the Icarian Sea are stained brown and orange like the leaves of fall and reflects it’s image upon the water making what should be blue green look like mud. Next to the solemn nymph is the only plant in sight, drooping of dehydration. The scarlet band around Icarus’ waist falls down into the sea like a waterfall of blood. In a testament to his close encounter with the sun, Icarus’ wings are blackened around the edges and his skin is tanned severely. Even the living nymphs bring no visage of life; their hair is red as the rocks behind them and the flora ornamenting it grey and bleak.

Of course, this deathly visage is so much more than just the death of Icarus; it holds a million meanings, each individual to each of the painting’s admirers. And each one of these is for very different reasons. Some may know the painting or the mythology behind it while others may remain ignorant but appreciate Icarus as a mere fallen angel, carrying all the connotations of such to their definition. Honestly, the story behind the painting – the Greek mythology – is of very little importance to my interpretation regardless of my early exposure to Icarus’ tale.

My draw to The Lament for Icarus was due to my attraction to the painting’s sensuality and my predisposition to physical beauty, especially classical beauty; I have always been inexplicably spellbound to the aesthetically pleasing. As a mere high-school sophomore, my cynosure became thoughts of the perfect male face and body. I spent endless hours on the internet researching definitions, examples, formulas, anything to understand and achieve aesthetica. Somewhere in the middle of this I watched a recording of Cats, the Musical. There was one character to whom I  shared complete compassion for: “Grizabella the Glamour Cat”, a cat who was once beautiful and young but lost it all with age.

I will be honest and proclaim I am vain. I am petrified by the notion that I may grow to be less than beautiful by the standard to which I currently hold myself; to me, The Lament for Icarus is my fall from this standard. This meaning, however, is completely twisted when I take into account my belief that Grizabella, in her decrepit and broken state, is the most beautiful cat in Cats. It can therefore be concluded that The Lament for Icarus depicts a beautiful breakdown of beauty for the sake of recognizing the kind of beauty found in Grizabella.

The differences in my take of the painting and the millions of views of other art admirers are exactly what Berger was talking about in his essay Ways of Seeing. He claims since images are now easily reproduced and distributed, the original way of seeing a painting is split into millions of pieces, my take being one of those millions. This idea is completely true and for the most part I do agree with Berger. I am not sure, however, technology has actually made the way I saw the painting any different; had I sought out the original Lament for Icarus as it was seen in Draper’s studio or at the 1898 Royal Academy Exhibition, I probably would’ve seen it the same way because that viewwas based upon my prior experience.* Well, prior experience and knowing what questions to ask so that I could see.

* The only new experience which might change my view of the painting in going to 1898 would be the shock of having a funny man in a blue box asking me to time travel with him. (This really has nothing to do with the essay, but I thought some may appreciate it)