0588IcarusDaedalus

0588IcarusDaedalus_Goltzius

Gallery
Ovid Met.

Hendrik Goltzius, "The Fall of Icarus" engraving 1588, on of the "Four Disgracers" after Cornelisz van Haarlem? (lost), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Hofmann 1987 no. 4.23

The Four Disgracers, a set of engravings by Goltzius, include Tantalus, Icarus, Ixion, and Phaethon.

Given the timing, the aftermath of the Spanish Armada's defeat by ERI and the concomitant rescue of the Netherlands from Philips' overreaching in the same year, this engraving might be as celebratory as it is corrective.

Baroque etching of a falling Icarus, surrounded by a Latin inscription in a circular frame

"The second of the Disgracers, Icarus was the son of Daedalus, the famous inventor and architect of the laryrinth of Crete. Father and son were confined to the labyrinth because they had given Ariadne the clue with which she guided Theseus out of the maze. But both Daedalus and Icarus escaped on wings made of wax. Icarus made the mistake of soaring too close to the sun, the wax melted, and he dropped into the sea.

"Goltzius pictures Icarus somersaulting through the air. Grasping the opportunity to depict unlimited movement, the artist combines his technique of using swelling ines with extreme foreshortening." Strauss #258

See 1013Tantalus_Goltzius

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University and other contexts.
This resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.