Victorian Classicism

The Lament for Icarus

Herbert James Draper, 1898

The Lament for Icarus is Herbert James Draper's 1898 painting of the dead Icarus mourned by sea nymphs on a rock, his great wings spread around him. It won a gold medal in Paris in 1900 and is in Tate Britain.

Artist: Herbert James Draper
Date: 1898
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 182.9 × 155.6 cm
Collection: Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom
Movement: Victorian Classicism

The Lament for Icarus is the best-known painting by the British artist Herbert James Draper. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1898 and bought the same year for the nation through the Chantrey Bequest, it won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. The canvas, about 183 by 156 centimeters, is in Tate Britain, London. The image above is a close detail of the center of the composition.

What you are looking at

Icarus lies dead on a rock by the sea, his head fallen back against the shoulder of a nymph. His body is not pale like the nymphs' but deeply tanned, burned by his flight too close to the sun. A red-and-white cloth is wrapped around his hips, and around his wrist we can see the leather strap that bound the wings to his arm.

The wings are enormous. Painted in browns, creams and gold, feather by feather, they spread behind and beside him like a fallen bird's, filling the upper left and right of the picture. In this detail, one wing curves over the nymphs at right, and another rises at upper left.

Two nymphs bend over him. The nearer, red-haired, cradles his head and looks down at his face; the other, behind her, has her eyes closed and her lips parted as if singing or weeping. In the full painting a third nymph sits at the right with a lyre, and the sea, glinting gold in the low sun, stretches behind them.

The story

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the craftsman Daedalus makes wings of feathers and wax so that he and his son Icarus can escape from Crete. He warns the boy not to fly too high; Icarus, delighted with flight, soars toward the sun, the wax melts and he falls into the sea that bears his name. Ovid has Daedalus find the body and bury it. Draper invents the scene of nymphs mourning him, giving the myth a melancholy, romantic ending.

How it was made

Draper trained at the Royal Academy Schools and in Paris and Rome, and he worked in the late Victorian classical manner of Frederic Leighton: idealized nudes, careful anatomy, rich color. The wings are a tour de force; Draper is said to have studied real birds' wings for them. Their hard detail contrasts with the soft, glowing flesh of the nymphs.

Where to see it

The painting is at Tate Britain in London. For more myth painting by Draper, see Clyties of the Mist and The Pearls of Aphrodite, and our Greek Mythology in Art collection.

Questions & answers

Where is The Lament for Icarus by Draper?

It is in Tate Britain in London. The painting was bought for the nation through the Chantrey Bequest in 1898, the year it was shown at the Royal Academy. It won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.

What is the story behind The Lament for Icarus?

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Icarus flies too close to the sun on wings of feathers and wax made by his father Daedalus. The wax melts and he falls into the sea. Draper imagines his body washed onto a rock and mourned by sea nymphs, a scene not found in Ovid.

Why is Icarus so dark in Draper's painting?

Draper paints Icarus with deeply tanned, sunburned skin to show that he has flown too close to the sun. The darkness of his body contrasts with the pale skin of the nymphs around him and makes him the visual center of the composition.

Appears in

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Fallen Angels in Art
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Academic Art
Flawless flesh, gods and heroes, and invisible brushstrokes: the official art of the nineteenth century, its fall from favor and its remarkable return.
The Pre-Raphaelites
Seven young rebels in 1848 London, a drowned Ophelia, a cursed Lady of Shalott, and the long afterglow of the most literary movement in British art.
Greek Mythology in Art
Venus rising from the sea, Icarus falling, Saturn eating his children: how painters and sculptors have retold the Greek myths for two and a half thousand years.
Death in Art
Skeletons, deathbeds, martyrs and islands of the dead: how artists have looked at the one subject no one escapes.

More by the artist

Herbert James Draper

All works →

Aphrodite with long red-gold hair stands on a sea rock admiring a string of pearls while nymphs and attendants lift more pearls from the water below — Herbert James Draper, The Pearls of Aphrodite, 1907 — The Pearls of Aphrodite
Herbert James Draper · 1907

Pale nude nymphs float upward in swirling grey mist through a mountain gorge toward a shaft of sunlight — Herbert James Draper, Clyties of the Mist, 1912 — Clyties of the Mist
Herbert James Draper · 1912

Kindred works

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A woman in a sheer orange dress sleeps curled on a marble bench above a sunlit sea, an oleander branch hanging at the top right — Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895 — Flaming June
Frederic Leighton · 1895

A young man in a blue tunic leans over a dark lily pond as seven pale, red-haired nymphs rise from the water and take his arm — John William Waterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896 — Hylas and the Nymphs
John William Waterhouse · 1896

A woman in a white dress sits in a boat draped with a woven cloth, releasing its chain on a reedy river, three candles at the prow — John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888 — The Lady of Shalott
John William Waterhouse · 1888

An armless marble statue of a half-nude goddess with drapery slipping from her hips, her head turned to the side — Alexandros of Antioch, Venus de Milo, c. 150–125 BC, Louvre — Venus de Milo
Alexandros of Antioch · c. 150–125 BC

Nude nymphs link hands and dance in a ring around a blazing bonfire in a dark wood while Pan crouches at the left playing a pipe — Joseph Tomanek, Nymphs Dancing to Pan's Flute — Nymphs Dancing to Pan's Flute
Joseph Tomanek

A skull-faced figure clutches its face on a railed road beneath a swirling blood-red sky over a dark blue fjord — Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893 — The Scream
Edvard Munch · 1893

A green-patinated bronze of a nude man seated on a rock, chin resting on his hand, on a stone pedestal in a garden — Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, monumental cast of 1904, Musée Rodin, Paris — The Thinker
Auguste Rodin · Modeled 1880–82; enlarged 1902–03; this cast 1904

A wild-eyed gray-haired giant crouches in darkness, biting into the headless, bloodied body he clutches in both hands — Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, c. 1819–1823 — Saturn Devouring His Son
Francisco Goya · c. 1819–1823