Paternal love: Van Dyck's early 'Daedalus and Icarus' rediscovered

• Published in: Burlington magazine 2017-02, Vol.159 (1367), p.99-108
• Main Author: VAN DER STIGHELEN, KATLIJNE
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0007-6287

A recently rediscovered painting of "Daedalus and Icarus" by Anthony van Dyck represents a marked shift in the depiction of the myth in the southern Netherlands and also occupies a unique place in the Antwerp painter's early oeuvre. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall." Versions of this theme of hubris and its consequences are to be found in various ancient sources, but Ovid's "Metamorphoses" is the best known anthology. 17th-century Antwerp artists were conversant with Ovid's writings: Peter Paul Rubens, for instance, owned a part-Latin, part-German illustrated Antwerp edition of 1591; and a "Metamorphoses" of 1606 edited by Peter de Jode is listed in the 1645 estate inventory of Zacharias Rem, a pupil of Jacob Jordaens. Karel van Mander referred to the story of the "Val van Icarus" (Fall of Icarus), using Ovid's "Metamorphoses" as a source of morality tales in the fifth section of his "Schilder-Boeck." Artists were encouraged to aspire to great heights in their work, but to rein in hubris with temperance and discipline. The tale of Icarus carries the moral of the importance of choosing the "golden mean," or "aurea mediocritas," a message transmitted through literary sources and also disseminated through 16th-century prints and emblems. [Publication Abstract]