The Fall of Icarus

When the first time I went through internet websites and searched for the painting "The Fall of Icarus", I felt very confused. Why there were so many versions of the painting? Which one was the authentic one? I downloaded critiques on both the painting "The Fall of Icarus" and the tale "Daedalus and Icarus" and read about those critiques before I could really understand what the painting and the tale were all about.

Different artists drew the painting "The Fall of Icarus" in different ways. The differences in presentations in "The Fall of Icarus" were due in part to the times in which the pieces were made. In some of those paintings, the clothing was changed so that it represented those of contemporary times. In others, the pieces reflect the geography around the artist. The setting in which they painted the piece might have been the only setting that they knew. Other differences could have stemmed from the artist’s upbringing. The painting might also reflect what the artists knew about the ancient world and what they thought the ancient world had been like.

However, I still felt that it was really a great idea to expose students in set induction to the painting "The Fall of Icarus" before they started to look at and study about the tale "Daedalus and Icarus". Most of the students were visually-oriented, and they learnt better through visual aids. After viewing the painting, students would grasp an overall concept on how the setting of the tale looked like. In fact, I felt that the painting was in fact closely represented the setting of the tale. There were setting sun, ploughing fields and the sea. Through the painting, students could understand better what were the characters in the tales. The main characters -- fishermen, the shepherd and the ploughman existed in both the painting and the tale.

Besides that, I agreed with Dr. Edwin's idea that there was the need to simplify the language of the tale "Daedalus and Icarus" if students were to better understand the whole story. The original version of the tale was too crowded with descriptive words and excessive details, until I myself had to read it twice before I could trace out the development of the plot and understand the gist of the story.

After all, "Daedalus and Icarus" was interesting to read on.

By: Chuah Kar Wooi (134185)

B.Ed. (TESL)