The Arcadian Shepherds

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The Arcadian Shepherds is the title of two paintings by the French painter Nicolas Poussin . The images are also known as The Shepherds of Arcadia or Et in Arcadia Ego .

The Arcadian Shepherds , 1st version, Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth , 1627
The Arcadian Shepherds , 2nd version, 1637/38, Louvre

Both pictures show a group of idealized shepherds in front of an ancient tomb with the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO. The two versions, which were made about ten years apart, are kept in Chatsworth House in Devonshire and in the Louvre .

Data

The Arcadian Shepherds
The Arcadian Shepherds
around 1627
Oil on Ln
101 × 82 cm
Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth House, Chatsworth
The Arcadian Shepherds
Les Bergers d'Arcadie
around 1637/1638
Oil on Ln
87 × 120 cm
Musee du Louvre
Inventory number INV 7300

Provenances

The picture from Chatsworth House is recorded in an inventory drawn up around 1677 by Cardinal Camillo Massimi (1620–1677), one of Poussin's most important patrons. At the end of the 17th century the picture came into the collection of Louis-Henri de Loménie de Brienne (1635–1698), since 1761 it belonged to William Cavendish , 4th Duke of Devonshire . Today it is part of the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth House, Chatsworth .

The painting in the possession of the Louvre was mentioned by Bellori in the Vite de 'pittori, scultori et architetti moderni of 1672. It was acquired by Louis XIV in 1685 and subsequently entered the Louvre collection.

description

Both of Poussin's pictures show considerable formal differences.

The early version shows a forest landscape in portrait format with a high sarcophagus on which a skull lies. In the foreground lies a river god crowned with laurel or olive branches, the personification of Alpheios , who flows through Arcadia and who often plays a role in Arcadia poetry. Two shepherds and a shepherdess read the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO excitedly and with eager attention. Warm brown and ocher tones dominate the picture.

For the later version of the theme, Poussin has chosen a landscape format. In a bucolic landscape under a clear sky and in front of the towering mountains of Arcadia in the background, parallel to the viewer, there is a simple grave monument made of stone blocks with the same inscription. Four people, symmetrically arranged, stand quietly and contemplatively in front of the monument, with the two kneeling shepherds, who follow the inscription with their index fingers, flanked by two standing people. A young shepherd leans on the monument and pensively looks at the companion kneeling in front of him. A female figure, dressed in antique clothing, flanks the right side of the group like a statue. She has put her hand on the shoulder of the young shepherd who points to the inscription and who looks at her questioningly. In this picture there is no skull as a symbol of a memento mori .

The different mood of the two pictures is reflected in their formal and stylistic differences, the emotional state of the people is also reflected in that of the composition.

The astonishment and excitement of those involved is illustrated in the first picture by the opposing movement of the group of shepherds moving synchronously on one side and the dark tree trunks reaching into the foreground on the other. Crossing diagonals, a deep vanishing point, a low horizon make the sarcophagus appear monumental and overwhelming. The contemplative and elegiac mood of the second picture is created by cool colors and a composition based on symmetry, clarity, balance and harmony. The arched horizon line running across the center of the picture encompasses the group of people built symmetrically and parallel to the picture, the two statuesque peripheral figures frame the shepherds, which are complementary in the composition.

Et in Arcadia ego

The Latin sentence ET IN ARCADIA EGO is an ellipse : There is no connection between subject and predicate (the copula esse), which has to be added in the present tense or in a non-present form , depending on the context . This does not allow a clear translation into another language and led to different translations and interpretations. This in turn resulted in different interpretations of the images. While Bellori understood the sentence in 1672 in the sense of "that the grave is still in Arcadia and that death has its place in the midst of happiness", André Félibien , biographer, admirer and avid propagandist of Poussin's works , suggested a different interpretation: "Arcadia is a region of which the poets have spoken of as a precious land: but with this inscription it was intended to emphasize that he who is in the grave lived in Arcadia and that death is to be found in the midst of happiness."

Interpretations

The client and the commissioning situation are not known, there are no explanations by Poussin himself about the pictures, and there are no contemporary source texts to which the interpreters could refer. Interpretations must therefore first of all be based on information provided by the images themselves. Fundamental differences result primarily from different interpretations of the Latin inscription on the one hand and from the attempt to explain the female figure on the other.

The starting point for all interpretations is the Latin sentence ET IN ARKADIA EGO, for which there is no reference in ancient or Middle Latin literature and which can be seen for the first time in the picture of the Arcadian shepherds by Il Guercino from the early twenties of the 17th century. The tomb, inscription and skull of the early version lead to the conclusion that it is - as with Il Guercino - a Memento Mori picture in which the topos of death, which is omnipresent in life and experience of happiness, is visualized .

The Louvre picture is different: the tomb and inscription are there, but the skull with its strikingly clear message is missing. This version has been interpreted differently or even controversially in art history. After Panofsky's interpretation, set in motion by means of iconology , others came from the perspective of philology, especially with regard to Virgil's image of Arcadia and its consequences in art and literature, semiology and from a philosophical and psychoanalytical perspective .

In 1936, after his escape from Germany, Erwin Panofsky dealt with the subject for the first time using the methods of iconology, wrote an expanded and revised version of his first analysis in 1955 and published a further supplementary article on the subject in 1968. Panofsky mainly deals with the previous translations of the inscription and analyzes the change in interpretations. He states that the translation "I too was in Arcadia", which is the most widespread to this day, does not do justice to the original text or the Latin grammar. Rather, it was only suggested by Poussin's second picture, in which an elegiac mood manifests itself. Although violence was done to the Latin grammar in the version "I am in Arcadia too", justice was only done to Poussin's composition in the new meaning.

In contrast, the most recent interpretation of the sentence by Louis Marin [1985] is based on a semantic approach and raises the question of the ego that speaks in the picture; is it the person buried in the grave or is it the author of the picture himself? Marin's approach gave rise to further variants of interpretation.

The Marburg philosopher Reinhard Brandt interprets the female figure as Pittura , the allegory of painting, or in his book on Arcadia from 2005 as this, which at the same time as Daphne-Laura represents an allegory of the fame of the art of painting. Poussin's figure is not endowed with any of the usual attributes of the time, but the laurel plays a role that cannot be overlooked as the background of the tomb and as a wreath on the heads of the shepherds. The discovery of the art of painting by man is shown, as Pliny tells in book 35 of his Naturalis historia . The picture can be read as Poussin's contribution to the then virulent debate as to whether painting, which was not included in the canon of the seven Artes Liberales , is only a craft, but rather has an equal rank among the arts. According to Brandt's interpretation, the spokesperson for the sentence “Et in Arcadia Ego” is the painting itself.

The French philosopher Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron (* 1944) interprets the Latin sentence as “I, the painter, I will survive death in the land of artists who have become immortal through their works”. From a philosophical point of view, he regards the Arcadian Shepherds as a meditation by Poussin on painting and on death. “It is primarily a work of meditation: meditation on the painter's craft and on death evokes pictorial representation, it is the source of the image, which in turn sets meditation in motion from the side of the viewer.” Viellard -Baron places Poussin's picture in the context of a world of thought that is shaped by Platonic ideas. The mythical Arcadia is the homeland of the poets. The painter of the picture, represented by EGO, is also at home in Arcadia. The immortality of beauty ( l'immortalité du beau ) is symbolized in the picture by the figure of the anciently dressed woman. Beauty escapes death because, thanks to the painter's art, it remains present before our eyes.

reception

Relief in the park at Shugborough Hall , Staffordshire

Between 1748 and 1763, the English architect Thomas Anson had a grave monument for his brother George Anson built by the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691–1781) in the park of the family seat Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire . The relief on the monument shows a mirror image of a section from the Louvre version of the Arcadian Shepherds. Below the relief is a plaque with the inscription OUOSVAVV & DM , the meaning of which has not yet been deciphered. It employed cryptologists of all kinds and is the subject of speculation that has also been reflected in contemporary mystery and comic production, as well as in stories that revolve around the Templar Order and the Holy Grail .

Cenotaph for Poussin in the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome

In 1828 Chateaubriand , then the French ambassador to the Holy See in Rome, donated a cenotaph for Poussin, who is buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina . He commissioned three Prix ​​de Rome scholars from the Villa Medici in Rome to build the marble stele . The sculptor Léon Vaudoyer designed the overall concept, Louis Desprez (1799–1870) carried out the sculptural work including the relief and Paul Lemoyne (1784–1873) created the bust of Poussin. The relief on the marble stele also shows a section from the Louvre version of the Arcadian Shepherds with the sarcophagus, the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO, two shepherds and the allegorical figure.

literature

  • Et in Arcadia Ego . Actes du 27e congrès annuel de la North American Society of 17th century French Literature. Paris 1997.
  • Erwin Panofsky : Et in Arcadia ego. Poussin and the tradition of the elegiac . (First edition Cologne 1978). Edited by Volker Breidecker. Friedenauer Presse, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-932109-28-7 .
  • Louis Marin : On A Theory Of Reading In The Visual Arts: Poussin's Arcadian Shepherds . In: Wolfgang Kemp (ed.): The viewer is in the picture. Art history and reception aesthetics . DuMont, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7701-1720-4 , pp. 110-146.
  • Jean-Louis Villard-Baron: Et in Arcadia ego. Poussin ou l'immortalité du beau . Hermann, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-7056-6971-3 .
  • Elizabeth Cropper, Charles Dempsey: Nicolas Poussin. Friendship, and the Love of Painting . Princeton Univ. Press, 1996, chapter 8. Death in Arcadia . Pp. 279-312.
  • Reinhard Brandt : Nicolas Poussin. Et in Arcadia Ego . In: R. Brandt: Philosophy in Pictures. From Giorgione to Magritte . 2nd Edition. DuMont, Cologne 2001. ISBN 3-7701-5293-X , pp. 265-282
  • Reinhard Brandt: Arcadia in Art, Philosophy and Poetry. Berlin: Rombach 2005. pp. 69-96. (Rombach Sciences. Series of sources for art. 25.) ISBN 3-7930-9440-5

Web links

Commons : Et in Arcadia ego by Poussin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. Annegret Kayling: Poussin's conception of art in the context of philosophy. Marburg 2003. p. 234.
  2. "cioè che il seplolcro si trova ancora in Arcadia, e che la morte ha luogo in mezzo la felicità"
  3. ^ André Félibien: Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages… Trévoux 1725. Quoted from: Oscar Bätschmann: Pan deus Arcadiae venit. In: Erwin Panofsky: Contributions to the Hamburg Symposium 1992. P. 76.
  4. ^ Panofsky: Et in Arcadia ego. On the conception of transience in Poussin and Watteau. In: R. Klibansky, HJ Patton (Ed.): Philosophy and History. Oxford 1936, pp. 222-254.
  5. ^ Panofsky: Meaning in the Visual Arts. 1955.
  6. Dora et al. Erwin Panofsky: The 'Tomb in Arcady' at the 'Fin de sièdle'. In: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch. 30. 1968, pp. 287-304.
  7. Louis Marin. Cologne 1985.
  8. Pliny, Naturalis Historia, Book 35, 16, 5.
  9. ^ "Moi, le peintre, je survis à la mort dans la patrie des artistes immortalisés par leurs œuvres".
  10. "... c'est avant tout une œuvre de meditation: la méditation sur le métier de peintre et sur la mort provoque la représentation picturale, elle est la source du tableau; mais celui-ci, à son tour, produit la meditation de la part du spectateur. ”Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron 2010. pp. 7–8. Quoted from [1] Thibaut Gress: Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron: Et in arcadia ego. Poussin ou l'immortalité du beau. In: Actu Philosophia. January 2, 2011.
  11. Helen Thomas: The Shugborough Code. BBC. Stoke & Stafforshire. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
  12. ^ Stèle funéraire de Nicolas Poussin à Rome