Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Somewhere in this peaceful coastal scene, a boy is drowning, and almost nobody cares. The painting takes its name from the Greek myth of Icarus, who soared too high on wings of feathers and wax until the sun melted them and sent him plunging into the sea. Yet finding him takes real effort. Near the large ship on the right, two small legs thrash in the water, the only sign left of the young dreamer. Meanwhile a farmer pushes his plow across the hillside, a shepherd stares off at the clouds, and a fisherman leans toward the water, all of them oblivious to the disaster nearby.

That casual indifference is the entire idea. Credited to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a Flemish painter of the 1500s who loved filling his canvases with peasants and daily chores, the work turns a legend into something like a folk saying: life carries on no matter who falls. Scholars still argue over whether Bruegel himself painted this version or whether a later hand copied a lost original, but the concept has kept its grip on people for hundreds of years. The poet W.H. Auden even wrote a famous poem inspired by it, noting how tragedy so often strikes while others are simply eating or walking along.

The soft green sea, the golden sun sinking on the horizon, and the busy little figures make for a lovely landscape at first glance. Its real trick is how much it hides in plain sight, asking you to hunt for the one thing the title says should matter most.