Icarus and the Bathers

This work reimagines the mythical fall of Icarus as dramatized by Henry Fuseli’s drawing ‘The Fall of Icarus and Bathing Women’ (c.1795) which has been further exaggerated by Lowe. The anatomically proportioned ‘Icarus’ has been copied from an etching of the same name by Hendrik Goltzius, (c.1588), and contrasts the illustratively painted bathing women. The fleshed-out Indian page is from Anthony Van Dyck’s ‘William Feilding 1st Earl of Denbigh’ (c.1633-34, and although originally addressing a perched parrot in the former, now directs the viewer’s eye to Icarus’ fabled fall.