Icarus
Icarus was the son of Daedalus. Daedalus was imprisoned in his own invention, the labyrinth. He helped the hero Theseus kill King Minos’s beast, the Minotaur, and run away with King Minos’s daughter, Ariadne.
Daedelus came up with a plan. He knew that Minos controlled all escape routes by land or sea, so he decided to go by air. He built wings for himself and Icarus and made them out of wax and feathers. They found their way out of the labyrinth and flew out of the highest tower.
Icarus foolishly ignored his father’s advice to fly on the same route as him so that the sun would not melt the wax and the sea would not dampen the feathers. Icarus flew up higher and higher toward the sun, and the wax in the wings melted and he plunged into the sea and drowned. Daedalus looked down towards the sea and saw the feathers floating on the water and figured out what happened. Eventually Daedalus found the body and buried it on the island of Icaria, and the sea which Icarus fell into is now called the Icarian Sea.
Icarus Media
The Fall of Icarus, ancient fresco from Pompeii
Pompeii. Villa Imperiale. Daedalus and Icarus.
The Lament for Icarus (1898) by H. J. Draper
17th-century relief with a Cretan labyrinth bottom right (Musée Antoine Vivenel)
The Sun, or the Fall of Icarus (1819) by Merry-Joseph Blondel, in the Rotunda of Apollo at the Louvre
