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"The Arcadian Shepherds" („Et in Arcadia ego“) №16965
"The Arcadian Shepherds" („Et in Arcadia ego“) №16965
Art. number: 16965
Description
This article is about the painting by Nicolas Poussin. For the painting by Guercino, see Et in Arcadia ego (Guercino). Et in Arcadia ego (also known as Les bergers d'Arcadie or The Arcadian Shepherds)[1] is a 1637–38 painting by the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). It depicts a pastoral scene with idealized shepherds from classical antiquity clustering around an austere tomb. It is held in the Louvre, Paris.
Poussin painted two versions of the subject under the same title; his earlier version, painted in 1627, is held at Chatsworth House. An earlier treatment of the theme was painted by Guercino circa 1618–22, also titled Et in Arcadia ego.
The translation of the phrase is "Even in Arcadia, there am I". The usual interpretation is that "I" refers to Death, and "Arcadia" means a utopian land. It would thus be a memento mori. During Antiquity, many Greeks lived in cities close to the sea, and led an urban life. Only Arcadians, in the middle of the Peloponnese, lacked cities, were far from the sea, and led a shepherd life. Thus Arcadia symbolized pure, rural, idyllic life, far from the city.
However, Poussin's biographer, André Félibien, interpreted the phrase to mean that "the person buried in this tomb lived in Arcadia"; in other words, that the person too once enjoyed the pleasures of life on earth. This reading was common in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, William Hazlitt wrote that Poussin "describes some shepherds wandering out in a morning of the spring, and coming to a tomb with this inscription, 'I also was an Arcadian'."
Reproduction is a high-quality print, on an Italian eco ink canvas. The canvas is cased on the back, arranged and framed with a luxurious frame.
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