kingdom of france bourbonconcept:movement baroque

Et in Arcadia Ego

Name: Provenio Provenance Knowledge Graph
License: https://provenio.art/terms

Oil on canvas by Nicolas Poussin, c.1637-1638. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Depicts four shepherds in the Arcadian landscape contemplating a tomb with the Latin inscription 'Et in Arcadia Ego' (Even in Arcadia, there am I — Death). A central work of French Baroque classicism and Erwin Panofsky's iconological method.

Notes

·This is Poussin's second version of the subject; the first version (c.1628-1629) is in Chatsworth House, Derbyshire.
·Erwin Panofsky's 1936 essay 'Et in Arcadia Ego: On the Conception of Transience in Poussin and Watteau' (Philosophy and History: Essays Presented to Ernst Cassirer) made this the canonical example of his iconological method.
·The Latin phrase 'Et in Arcadia ego' is grammatically ambiguous: 'I too am in Arcadia' (spoken by a person now dead) is Panofsky's reading; 'Even in Arcadia, there am I' (Death speaking) is the alternate.
·Poussin's second version shows a calmer, more meditative mood than the first — the discovery of mortality in paradise is greeted with equanimity rather than shock.
·The serene geometric composition and the deliberate classicism of the figures exemplify Poussin's 'poussinisme' — reason over passion — which became the foundation of French academic painting theory.