The Lament for Icarus
The Lament for Icarus c1898 by Classicist British Painter Herbert James Draper (1863-4 – 1920); a painter of the Victorian Era and the first two decades of the 20th Century.
This is James Draper interpretation of the Greek Mythology of Icarus the son of the Master Craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labryrinth (the elaborate maze of Greek Mythology).
In which Icarus and his father try to escape from Crete using wings his father built out of feathers and wax.
As the story goes Icarus fell from the sky when he went to close to the sun, because he failed to listen to his fathers warning not to go to close to the sea, lest the dampness clog his wings, and not to fly to close to the sun, lest the sun melt the wax.
His complacency and his hubris caught the better of him; and as he flew to close to the sun, the wax on the wings melted, and he fell into the sea, where he drowned.
The tragic theme of failure at the hand of hubris in the story of The Lament for Icarus parallels that to the story of Phaeton (You can find out more of this Greek Mythological Tale and view the artwork by following the link).
The Lament for Icarus is a retouched digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available for sale as an art print online.
Info Below From Wikipedia.org
Born in London, the son of a jeweler named Henry Draper and his wife Emma, he was educated at Bruce Castle School in Tottenham and then went on to study art at the Royal Academy.
He undertook several educational trips to Rome and Paris between 1888 and 1892, having won the Royal Academy Gold Medal and Traveling Studentship in 1889.
In the 1890s, he worked as an illustrator, and eventually settled in London; where he married Ida (née Williams) in 1891, with whom he had a daughter named Yvonne.
Draper’s most productive period began in 1894.; where he focused his attention mainly on mythological themes from ancient Greece. His painting “The Lament for Icarus” c1898 won him the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, and was later purchased for the Tate Gallery by the Chantrey Trustees.
He was also responsible for the decoration of the ceiling of the Drapers’ Hall in the City of London. Though Draper was neither a member nor an associate of the Royal Academy, he took part in the annual expositions from 1890 on. In later years as the public tastes changed and mythological scenes became less popular he concentrated more on portraits.
During his lifetime Draper was quite famous, and a well-known portrait painter; but in his later years his popularity faded among the public; and he died of arteriosclerosis at the age of 56, in his home on Abbey Road.
