Making a splash

Icarus and his father, Daedalus, learnt how to fly with wings made of feathers and wax, but Icarus flew too close to the sun and melted the wax. Here, he crashes into the sea as the world goes on around him.

Ploughing ahead

Bruegel's design puts an ordinary farmer in the foreground, leaving the 'epic' myth of Icarus to happen in the background. Life goes on, and the indifference is both funny and tragic.

Sail away

Bruegel foregrounds ordinary life, and relegates these grand ships to the background, in a technique known as 'Mannerist inversion'

Sheeping around

Several sheep can be seen wandering around the coastal edge. Do you think any of them fell into the water like Icarus?

In the foreground

The main focus of this painting is a young woman, kneeling in the centre, removing the corn cobs from her basket, and spreading them out in the sun on a blanket.

Contrasting figures

In the background is another woman, busily engaged in a task and painted with darker colors, contrasting with the younger girl in the foreground.

Painting motion

Malhoa focuses the attention on the bent body of the young woman in the foreground as she leans over the basket.

Yellow all around

The women's face and blouse are bathed in sunlight, with the yellow in her headscarf matching the corns on the ground.