In 1987, a sunny young marketing and public relations executive at Viação Aérea Rio Grandense, doubtless after a long lunch during which more than a few caipirinhas were consumed, had a magnificent flight of the imagination: Varig’s magazine should be called Ícaro. It was done. Within a couple of decades Brazil’s proud flag carrier, which had been flying happily since its foundation in 1927, crashed violently into the sea: it went bankrupt in a most ignominious fashion.
De val van Icarus, attr. to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, poss. 1560s, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Brussels
