Play your cards right

A child gazes intently into a deck of fortune-telling cards. Hamed Nada's works depict ordinary Egyptian lives, but often include mystical Sufi symbols. Is the child seeking a better fortune?

Feline fortunes

The wise-looking cat seems to know something. Is the cat a fortune-teller, too? Where is it looking?

Strange symbols

The cat's eyes lead us to this hand in the top left of the image. Nada used symbols from the Sufi culture of Islamic mysticism to add depth to his work. This hand is a symbol of good fortune.

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?