Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

I looked at Pieter Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus for a long time before I could even find Icarus. A small splash mark was tucked away in the corner, but for the most part the painting was about the beautiful Greek landscape and not about the boy that just fell to his death. I believe Breughel was saying that Icarus needed to keep himself and grounded and get his head out of the clouds. Daedalus had warned his son not to "get carried away" or "think to highly of himself". The moral of the story is that people need to stay humble. The painting has no empathy for Icarus. Just because one boy decides he doesn't have to abide by the laws of gravity, doesn't mean that people will take notice. You can see in today's culture that parents are constantly telling their children to 'come down', 'sit down', 'calm down', 'slow down', and 'get down from there'. Kids don't need wax wings to dream about flying. They can climb trees or jump off cliffs into lakes. These kids won't stop attempting to fly until something bad happens to them. Like have their wings melt off right before their eyes.