Chapter 5 | ICARUS AND LUCIFER
The fall of Icarus
Perhaps the best-known story of a man with wings is the story of Icarus from Greek mythology. The sculptor Artus Quellinus created a sculpted relief about this story. Icarus wanted to escape from an island where he was imprisoned with his father, using homemade wings. You can see the straps that attach the wings to his arms. Despite his father’s warnings, he flew too close to the sun. The glue between the feathers melted, causing him to fall into the sea and drown. His startled face and some loose feathers clearly show that he is falling. Moreover, his body is not depicted exactly upright or horizontally. His legs and arms are unbalanced and cannot hold on to anything.
The relief is located above the door to the bankruptcy chamber in the 17th-century City Hall of Amsterdam, now the Royal Palace on Dam Square. Thus, Icarus became a symbol for the consequences of overconfidence and reckless management.
The Fall of Lucifer
The Latin name Lucifer comes from a myth in which the angel Lucifer is the bringer of light (just as an ordinary match can also bring light). Another myth is ‘The Fall of Lucifer’: Lucifer was a beautiful angel who became intensely jealous of the fact that God paid so much attention to mankind (Adam and Eve). He started a rebellion against God. As punishment for this, God cast him out of heaven. Lucifer then became so vengeful that he transformed into the devil. In the beautiful engraving/illustration by Gustave Doré, you get an impression of Lucifer’s immense fall from heaven to earth and finally to his new dwelling place, hell. In Doré’s engraving, Lucifer has already been given ‘devilish’ bat wings instead of the usual white feathered wings of angels.
EXTRA: Choose a moment from the story of Icarus or Lucifer to draw. It’s up to you what kind of wings you give them.
A pupil from group 6 of primary school found the story about Lucifer exciting and wanted to make a drawing of it. In a long vertical strip he has depicted different moments of the fall one below the other. Lucifer falls through several layers of clouds until he ends up in a walled hell where fire burns and the skull of a person is intended to give us the shrivers.
