The Fall of Phaeton

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The Fall of Phaeton: Peter Paul Rubens

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Peter Paul Rubens Oil Painting - The Fall of Phaeton

Keywords: Fall, Phaeton

Work Overview: The Fall of Phaeton
Artist Peter Paul Rubens
Year c. 1604/1605
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 98.4 cm × 131.2 cm (38.7 in × 51.7 in)
Style Baroque
Genre mythological painting
Location National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., United States

The Fall of Phaeton is a painting by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, featuring the ancient Greek myth of Phaeton (Phaethon), a recurring theme in visual arts. Rubens chose to depict the myth at the height of its action, with the thunderbolts hurled by Zeus to the right. The thunderbolts provide the light contrast to facilitate the display of horror on the faces of Phaeton, the horses and other figures while preserving the darkness of the event. The butterfly winged female figures represent the hours and seasons, who react in terror as the night and day cycle becomes disrupted. The great astrological circle that arches the heavens is also disrupted. The assemblage of bodies form a diagonal oval in the center, separating dark and light sides of the canvas. The bodies are arranged so as to assist the viewer’s travel continually around that oval.

Rubens painted The Fall of Phaeton in Rome and the painting was probably reworked later around 1606/1608.[1] It has been housed in the National Gallery of Art since 5 January 1990.[1] Rubens also painted other Greek mythological subjects, such as The Fall of Icarus, Perseus Freeing Andromeda, and The Judgement of Paris.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), one of the greatest masters of the 17th century, painted this masterpiece as a young artist in Rome. Rubens depicted a moment of high drama in this popular Greek myth that was famously recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses (c. 8 AD). Phaeton, the Sun-god Apollo's son, had begged and begged his father to allow him to drive the Chariot of the Sun across the sky. After Apollo finally conceded, his worst fears were confirmed: the rash youth had neither the strength nor the experience to control the chariot and keep it on its regular course through the heavens. The horses bolted in an erratic pattern, so that Earth either froze because the Sun Chariot was too far away, or it was scorched by the Sun's heat. At left, the Horae, butterfly-winged female figures personifying the seasons, which represent the harmony and order of the universe, are reacting in terror as Earth below bursts into flame. Even the great astrological bands that arch through the heavens are disrupted. Outside the picture frame, Jupiter, the supreme god, has just unleashed a thunderbolt aimed at Phaeton in order to save the universe from complete destruction. As the chariot disintegrates and the horses tumble apart, Phaeton plunges to his death.

The story of Phaeton's hubris and subsequent destruction appealed to artists of the period not only for its drama character but also for its allegorical and moralizing implications. Generally, in 16th- and 17th-century publications of the Metamorphoses, the Phaeton legend was seen as a parable on the devastating consequences of pride and lack of moderation. In 1604, Dutch art theorist Karel van Mander interpreted Ovid's story as a recommendation "to keep the middle of the road/steering not too high nor too low." He also presented a political interpretation of the story, noting that the myth teaches us "how damaging it is that sometimes, when children or childlike rulers reign over countries, they cause not only their own ruin, but also that of their community." Such moralizing ideas may underlie Rubens's expressive scene, but his primary interest seems to have been to exploit the full pictorial possibilities of this cosmic drama. A number of pentimenti (changes of composition), visible to the naked eye, indicate that he worked on The Fall of Phaeton over a long period of time. For example, Rubens painted over some of the horses' tangled straps and reins.

Around 1600, Rubens, who had been trained in classical ideals and philosophy, travelled from Antwerp to Italy. In his travels to Venice, Mantua, Genoa, and Rome, he not only studied the cultural riches and artistic movements of antiquity and the great Renaissance masters –among them Tintoretto, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo– but also absorbed the contemporary innovations introduced by artists such as Caravaggio. The inspiration he gained from this multifaceted exposure profoundly affected his own style of painting and became the foundation for his work. The dramatic light, powerful sense of movement, and complex poses in The Fall of Phaeton all exhibit Rubens's genius at assimilating that wide range of pictorial styles and visual motifs and his ability to infuse these with a new dynamism.

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Helios, the sun god, drove a four-horse chariot across the sky each day, giving the earth its hours and seasons. He rose from a palace in the east and flew to another in the west. Each night, with his team and chariot, he boarded a golden ferry to sail home.

Helios had a mortal son named Phaeton. When the boy was taunted for claiming the god as his father, Phaeton asked Helios for proof of his parentage. In response, Helios promised Phaeton anything he wanted. Phaeton's request was to drive his father’s chariot. Although Helios realized that the boy lacked the strength and skill to control the horses, the promise had been made. With dread, Helios handed over the reins.

When Phaeton set out, the horses veered, first heavenward, cutting the swath of the Milky Way, then fell to earth. Winged figures representing the hours and seasons, gesture in horror as the pattern of night and day is disrupted. The blazing chariot scorched the earth creating deserts. The earth’s very future was threatened. Zeus, the king of the gods, was called to intervene. He hurled a thunderbolt at the chariot, sending it in a fiery plunge to earth. The nymphs who recovered Phaeton’s body were so bereft that they became trees and wept over him. Their tears became amber, the fossilized resin of trees.

Peter Paul Rubens was the most sought-after painter in northern Europe during the early seventeenth century. His rich colors, energetic brushwork, and lively compositions epitomize the exuberance of baroque art. Dominated by restless motion, his dynamic and emotional style is created through strong contrasts of color and light. The son of a lawyer, Rubens was a noted linguist and scholar, well schooled in ancient history and classical languages. He served the courts of Europe not only as a painter, but also as a diplomat, sometimes carrying out delicate negotiations while working on foreign commissions.

Rubens painted The Fall of Phaeton while he was studying in Italy from 1600 to 1608. He sketched a famous battle scene painted by Leonardo da Vinci and used some of the horses in it as models for his own painting.

Phaeton, Apollo's son, begged his father to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky. In the hands of the rash youth, who had neither the strength nor the experience to control the chariot, the horses bolted, scorching everything in their path with the sun's heat. The butterfly - winged female figures, personifying the seasons and hours, react in terror as the earth below bursts into flame. Even the great astrological bands that arch through the heavens are disrupted. To save the universe from destruction, Zeus, king of the gods, throws a thunderbolt, represented here by a blinding shaft of light. As the chariot disintegrates, Phaeton plunges to his death.

Rubens painted The Fall of Phaeton in Rome. His study of works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo influenced his evocation of complex poses and a powerful sense movement. The lighting reveals the artist's attention to Venetian artists as well. Rubens continued to work on the painting over a number of years. He likely found the subject - which warned of the need for personal restraint and responsibility - congenial to his own philosophical beliefs.

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There is movement, action, and emotion here that literally leaps off of the canvas and encompasses the viewer. We see a chaotic and turbulent scene as Phaeton, son of Apollo the ancient Greek sun god, being killed by Zeus, king of the gods in order to prevent the earth from being burnt up. According to the myth, Phaeton was challenged by his playmates on the true nature of his parentage, despite reassurances that indeed he was the offspring of Apollo. In an attempt to prove that he was indeed of god like lineage, he flies his sun chariot across the sky. His lack of skill and training in this endeavour as well as his rashness of youth threatened the earth with total destruction as it risks being burn up by the hot, ever burning sphere of the sun. His horses, unused to this new pilot of sorts, react and bolt turning this way and that scorching everything in their path. The whole universe is disrupted and we see figures with wings representing the season reacting in horror. It literally is the end of everything. Zeus king of the gods sees the rashness and chaotic results of Phaeton’s ill-advised attempt to prove himself and sends a fiery thunderbolt, destroying the chariot and sending Phaeton to his death. Once again the universe is allowed to continue on its course through infinity. The emotions, action, feeling of chaos, fear, stress and sadness all seem to jumble up in this painting depicting a famous myth of the classical world. The eye is drawn to it but the viewer is not sure where to look first. It seems almost overwhelming to take the action in in one viewing. In this, the artist has reached a sort of pinnacle in the emotive power of the baroque. The fear is genuinely palpable as you look closely at the faces of the women symbolizing the seasons and the light from the lightning bolt has the sensation and colour of a genuine light source as it touches the clothing, skin and clouds arranged around the work. Shadows compete with light and add a sense of realism to the catastrophic events. Note the skin tones and the flesh so typical of Peter Paul Reubens with its natural contours and musculature giving the sense that these are real flesh and blood beings rather than some esoteric mythology. Reubens excelled in his organic and fleshy interpretations of the human form and this work is no exception. In this case the human figures are placed in events to explore the themes of responsibility and thinking twice before embarking on potentially destructive quests or in other words not to be “rushing in where angels fear to tread.”

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In Greek mythology, the sun was carried across the sky by Helios in a divine chariot. Helios's son, Phaeton, asked his father to prove his relationship to the sun by letting him drive the solar chariot for a day. Phaeton's test drive goes poorly, he loses control of horses and nearly crashes the sun into the earth. Zeus, to save their earth, is forced to kill Phaeton with a lightning bolt.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Helios attempts to talk Phaeton out of driving the chariot, describing the difficulties of his divine workday —

"The first part of the track is steep, and one that my fresh horses at dawn can hardly climb. In mid-heaven it is highest, where to look down on earth and sea often alarms even me, and makes my heart tremble with awesome fear. The last part of the track is downwards and needs sure control. Then even Tethys herself, who receives me in her submissive waves, is accustomed to fear that I might dive headlong. Moreover the rushing sky is constantly turning, and drags along the remote stars, and whirls them in rapid orbits. I move the opposite way, and its momentum does not overcome me as it does all other things, and I ride contrary to its swift rotation. Suppose you are given the chariot. What will you do? Will you be able to counter the turning poles so that the swiftness of the skies does not carry you away? Perhaps you conceive in imagination that there are groves there and cities of the gods and temples with rich gifts. The way runs through ambush, and apparitions of wild beasts! Even if you keep your course, and do not steer awry, you must still avoid the horns of Taurus the Bull, Sagittarius the Haemonian Archer, raging Leo and the Lion's jaw, Scorpio's cruel pincers sweeping out to encircle you from one side, and Cancer's crab-claws reaching out from the other. You will not easily rule those proud horses, breathing out through mouth and nostrils the fires burning in their chests. They scarcely tolerate my control when their fierce spirits are hot, and their necks resist the reins. Beware my boy, that I am not the source of a gift fatal to you, while something can still be done to set right your request!"

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The Fall of Phaeton, painted by Peter Paul Rubens between 1604 and 1608, depicts Phaeton, the son of Apollo, as he falls to Earth. In the Greek myth, Phaeton took his father’s sun-chariot, and in doing so he places the Earth in danger, because he did not possess the skill or strength to drive the chariot. In order to save the world from being scorched by the sun, Zeus shoots Phaeton down from the chariot with a lightening bolt. Rubens portrays Phaeton as he falls from the chariot, and the blinding light from the thunderbolt cuts across the canvas. [1]The story of Phaeton is meaningful to Rubens, because he revisited the imagery of Phaeton in writing , and in his painting, The Fall of Icarus.[2] Although the myth of Phaeton is an aphorism for the idea that bad things come to those who overextend themselves, Rubens applies a more complex metaphor to the imagery of Phaeton’s Fall. Rubens feels empathy for Phaeton’s plight and references Rubens’ own failings when he writes, “Like Hyperion’s son Phaeton stricken by the blast of the darting thunderbolt from his father’s four-horsed chariot, I fell headlong from the highest summit of my prayer.” [3] For Ruben’s Phaeton, quest may not have been for strength or power, but for knowledge. Although Phaeton ultimately fell from the sun chariot to his death, Rubens attributes the fall to a lack of guidance, rather than negligence.

Ruben’s surrounded himself with great thinkers, like his brother Philip, a philosopher. Rubens also revered the ancient Roman Philosophers, like Seneca, whose bust appears over the arch leading into Ruben’s garden in many of Rubens's paintings. [4] Even Rubens’ perspective on painting was academic, because he incorporated themes from literature and Greek mythology.

During the 17th century, artists straddled the line between defining their trade as a craft or a liberal art. Painting had been considered a craft because the application of paint, and the creation of pigment involved working with ones hands, but Rubens had an entire workshop of students to perform the laborious work. The hierarchy within the workshop would have elevated Rubens’ status to a professional in the liberal arts. Rubens’ anxiety about his own status as an artist, and a thinker, could be interpreted in the fall of Phaeton, as Phaeton attempts a task beyond his reach.

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