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Artwork: The Fall of Phaeton

Artist: Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)

Created: between 1604/1605, probably reworked c. 1606/1608

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: overall: 98.4 x 131.2 cm (38 3/4 x 51 5/8 in.)

framed: 125.4 x 159.4 x 5.7 cm (49 3/8 x 62 3/4 x 2 1/4 in.)

Location: National Gallery, Washington DC (https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.71349.html)

As a young artist, in Rome, Rubens painted this mythological masterpiece. It tells the story, from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, about the Sun God Apollo’s son Phaeton’s extreme desire to drive his father’s Chariot “through the heavens”. Apollo finally gives in and Phaeton trys desperately to control the chariot keeping it on its regular path across the sky. He loses control and Rubens shows us the exact moment of the action as the chariot plummets from the sky. On the left side of the work we see “winged” females who represent the seasons as order and “harmony”, and night and day are disrupted. The chariot’s horses are in violent freefall. Zeus is on the right throwing lightening bolts as Phaeton falls from the Chariot.

“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.” NGA