Icarus2.0011_Moustakas

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Ovid Met. 8.155-262
Ver. Aen. 6.14-33
Apoll. Libr. Epit.1.12-14

Vangelis Moustakas, "Icarus," Monument to the Fallen Airmen, 1975, Plateia Karaiskakis, Athens.

Moustakas' works on a website.

YouTube drive-around with commentary in Greek (45 seconds).

Commemorates fallen airmen in a square dedicated to the military hero who commanded courageously in the Greek War of Independence until his death in action on 23 April 1827.

Moustakas took on the theme of Icarus in a couple of other memorials: at the school for aeronautics at Tatoi (1975), and at Tanagra (1986) (see vagelismoustakas.com/εργα). The Karaiskakis Square monument has not received overwhelming critical support. Cadets of the Greek airforce are known as Ikaroi.

The heroic demise of Karaiskakis led to his immortalization in King Otto's conferral of the Grand Cross upon him posthumously. The Karaiskakis Stadium in Faliro marks the approximate spot of his fatal fall, though he is buried in the church of Hag. Dimitrios on Salamis, and the Ode of Georgios Karasikakis is a popular folk song. (A brief biography.)

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.