The Fall of Phaeton after 1776

Curator: It strikes me first as chaotic—a celestial car crash frozen in time. It is rendered beautifully in woven wool, creating the piece titled, *The Fall of Phaeton*, created by Antonio Tempesta after 1776. Editor: Chaotic, yes, but beautifully chaotic. Like a supernova of mythic proportions! All these horses tumbling, divine figures caught mid-scream—what a narrative tapestry of ambition gone awry. Curator: I agree, that phrase gets to its essence. The story is so central here, the ambitious Phaeton, son of Helios, who couldn't control the sun chariot. See how Helios is rendered in the top left. In Ovid's telling, the tale warns of unchecked hubris and its catastrophic consequences. Editor: The symbolism is dense. The horses, wild and untamed, mirror Phaeton's own lack of control. And look how Zeus is ready to strike him down. And as an iconographer, it all becomes a kind of stage set for a morality play about consequences and overreaching ambition, as much for viewers today as it would have been centuries ago. The flames that should sustain life and that warm it will, untethered, incinerate. Curator: Absolutely, like those morals whispered by mothers who told the stories by the hearthfire. Plus, the fact that it is rendered in wool is intriguing. Textile, a very human, tangible thing, is telling this rather grand divine tragedy. Perhaps it’s grounding the hubris and ambition—knitting the fallibility of humans right into the art. It is really just the perfect medium here. Editor: Exactly! The "everydayness" of the material brings a human touch to the celestial realm. It makes you consider who may have had the experience of producing and possessing this textile artwork. You have this beautiful rendering here as this rather lovely little home decoration or palace hanging of one man's total face-plant—it shrinks hubris down to domestic size. Curator: Yes, there's something humbling about that—tragedy turned tapestry. Editor: It is an important story still. I guess it also really begs the question—what are you hoping to steal the reins of today, even knowing that that could well cause your doom? It invites this sort of contemplation. Curator: And invites it so invitingly, in something so tactile, familiar and human-made, with the perfect composition to showcase one poor soul's plummet from grace!