The Lament for Icarus

The Lament for Icarus is a painting by Herbert James Draper, showing the dead Icarus, surrounded by lamenting nymphs. The wings of Icarus are based on the bird-of-paradise pattern. In 1898, the painting was bought from the Royal Academy exhibition through the Chantrey Bequest, a public fund for purchasing modern art bequeathed by Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey, R.A. The Lament for Icarus was subsequently awarded the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris.

According to Justine Hopkins, Draper identifies Icarus "with the other heroes of the Pre-Raphaelites and symbolists, who, like James Dean half a century later, manage to live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse". (The last half of that comment is based on a line in the 1947 novel Knock on Any Door by Willard Motley and its film adaptation.)