Wednesday, August 10, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
7
Painting sale to benefit library
By Helen schmidling
Correspondent
“Icarus on The Metolius”
is a varnished watercolor
by Sisters artist Paul Alan
Bennett. The original owner
of the painting died recently.
In his will, he asked that
this rare painting should be
re-sold to raise funds for
the Sisters Library. As sell-
ers of Paul Alan Bennett’s
fine art, Sisters Gallery &
Frame Shop is managing this
process.
“Icarus On the Metolius”
was originally completed
in 2003 as a donation piece
for Sisters Folk Festival’s
My Own Two Hands fund-
raiser. That year’s theme
centered on flying. It was
the first and only time that
Bennett created the title of
the work before making the
painting.
Bennett, a former art his-
tory teacher at COCC with an
M.A. in Greek history, lived
in Greece for six years. He
used several art history and
Greek mythology references
in the work.
Icarus’ father, Daedalus,
was a talented Athenian
craftsman, who built the
labyrinth for King Minos
of Crete, to imprison the
Minotaur, a half-man, half-
bull monster born of his wife
and the Cretan bull. Minos
also imprisoned Daedalus in
the labyrinth because he gave
Minos’s daughter, Ariadne,
a ball of string in order to
help Theseus, the enemy of
Minos, to survive the laby-
rinth and defeat the Minotaur.
In order to escape the
labyrinth, Daedalus made
two pairs of wings from wax
and feathers for himself and
Icarus. Daedalus warned
his son not to fly too close
to the sun, nor too close to
the sea. But Icarus, over-
whelmed by the giddiness
of flying, soared too close to
the sun, whose heat melted
the wax. Icarus kept flapping
his wings, but the feathers
fell away and he fell into the
sea.
In this painting, we see
Icarus crashing down into
the waters of the Metolius
River behind an oblivious
fly fisherman. Icarus appears
to be breaking out of a kind
of organic shape or body
halo, called a mandorla. In
Byzantine paintings, the
Virgin Mary is often por-
trayed as surrounded by a
mandorla.
Icarus is painted red. In
Monoan art, male figures are
usually painted red. There
was also a style of fifth-cen-
tury B.C. art called red-figure
pottery.
The feathers falling down
are references to the myth
of the death of the winged
horse, Pegasus. According to
the story, after his death, the
body of Pegasus was physi-
cally taken up into the heav-
ens to be made into a con-
stellation. One of his feath-
ers slowly floated back to
earth.
The Icarus Fly is shown in
the little circle to one side of
the fisherman. It is made out
of the fallen wings of Icarus.
It reflects the contemporary
art of fly-tying in a humorous
way.
The fisherman is totally
unaware of Icarus crashing
behind him. This is simi-
lar to “The Fall of Icarus,”
a 16th-century painting by
Pieter Bruegel, where ancient
themes were often portrayed
in contemporary scenes. In
Bruegel’s painting, Icarus
falls into the sea, while in the
foreground, a plowman pays
no attention to him.
Both Bruegel’s painting
and Paul’s painting ask the
question: “Is it more impor-
tant to just get on with the
work at hand, or to pay closer
photo provided
the sale of “Icarus on the Metolius” will benefit sisters Library.
attention to the often unseen
magical events that occur,
perhaps daily, in our lives?”
For more informa-
tion on the benefit for the
Sisters Library, contact
Sisters Gallery & Frame at
541-549-9552.
Editor ’s note: Helen
Schmidling helps to man-
age Sisters Gallery & Frame
Shop.
SISTERS DENTURE
FENTURES:
Partial, Full or Implants
for all ages.
541-549-0929
— 35 years experience —
LOCALLY OWNEF