Water Graves 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,  1558

“Proud of his success, the foolish Icarus forsook his guide, rising upon his wings to touch the skies; but as he neared the scorching sun, its heat softened the fragrant wax that held his plumes; and heat increasing melted the soft wax—he waved his naked arms instead of wings, with no more feathers to sustain his flight. And as he called upon his father's name his voice was smothered in the dark blue sea, now called Icarian from the dead boy's name.” Metamorphoses, Ovid

In another of Ovid’s myths, Icarus, son of the craftsman Daedalus, is given a pair of wings made out of feathers, wax, and leather, given to him by his father as a method of escape from the island Crete. Ignoring the warning from his father, Icarus flew too close to the sun, eventually melting the wax and leading him to his death.

In Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, the farmer and plough seen in the foreground dominate the composition, a strange but effective choice on Bruegel’s part. The yellow-tinted light highlights the banks of the bay, drawing the eye away from the title character. It is only after the eye moves toward the right of the composition that the viewer sees Icarus. Well, part of Icarus. His flailing legs are the last to plummet into the cold green sea. Icarus will inevitably drown, a consequence brought about by his ignorance. But in a way, Icarus, in this depiction, has already drowned. He has drowned in the landscape of this chaotic composition, his existence forgotten. Such is the nature of the cruel sea.

His suffering will forever be ignored as the peasants of the foreground continue to wade through long days and short nights. In his poem, “Musee des Beaux-Arts,” W. H. Auden writes “In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away/Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,/But for him it was not an important failure” (14-17). It is a tendency for man to bury things he cannot withstand or cannot worry himself with. He buries them in work, play, and love. We all have memories, regrets, and losses condemned to the benthos of our subconscious. We just pray that they don’t resurface.