Chester Arnold's 'Landscape with the fall of Icarus'

April Arett

Art 160

09-15-10

Chester Arnold Exhibit

     The piece of art work I choose was “Landscape with the fall of Icarus”, by Chester Arnold. I choose this piece not because of the content of the writing next to it, although it definitely helped make my decision, but because of the way it almost spoke to me. There is a huge mountain in this particular painting. Along this mountain there is a two lane path that’s carved out of the side of this monstrous beauty. This giant mountain is a reference to the famous Tower of Babel where instead of worshiping and remembering the accomplishments of God, people came to rejoice for the achievements of the people. God then punished the people by scattering culture and dialects throughout the world. I think it's interesting how Chester Arnold chose to retell this peace of history in his art work. He also retells a story of a Greek boy, Icarus, who is so overjoyed with the possibility and actuality of flying and freedom that he disobeyed his fathers direct orders not to fly too close to the sun and fell to his death. This is very much a depiction of humans and how we have a habit of blatantly disregarding wisdom offered from practiced hands. We often find out that if we would have taken the advice given, we would not of fallen flat on our face, meeting out end. You will also notice that to the right of the winding line of cars there is a huge bolder falling from a near by mountain. It looks as though it is about to crash down on some unsuspecting cars. I believe this is depicting humans as thoughtless creatures. They are completely ignorant to the danger, more interested in destroying the breath taking beauty around us, which in the end will lead to our demise. This is also apparent when you look close and you see a group of miners getting ready to blast off the side of the mountain. Humans are more destructive to the environment than ever, killing our natural resources of this world until there is nothing left to destroy. I absolutely love how Chester Arnold depicted this huge problem in this painting. Chester Arnold was inspired to paint this piece after he took a trip to Yosemite National Park and saw how tourism and capitalism has effected our delicate balance with nature. I think this is an amazing painting. I love how Chester Arnold was blatantly showing how flawed humanity is and how in the end it wont be a natural disaster that leads to our demise but ourselves exhausting what precious natural resources we have left. It is amazing to me how this painting can inspire so many emotions.