Et in Arcadia ego
Encyclopedia
"Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin
(1594–1665). They are pastoral
paintings depicting idealized shepherd
s from classical antiquity
, clustering around an austere tomb
. The more famous second version of the subject, measuring 87 by 120 centimetres (34.25 x 47.24 in), is in the Louvre
, Paris
, and also goes under the name "Les bergers d'Arcadie" ("The Arcadian Shepherds").
. In Greece, during Antiquity, Greeks lived in cities close to the sea, and led an urban life. Only Arcadians, in the middle of Peloponessos, lacked cities, were far from the sea, and led a shepherd life. For urban Greeks, especially during the Hellenistic era, Arcadia symbolized pure, rural, idyllic life, far from the city. Poussin's biographer, André Félibien
, interpreted it to mean that "the person buried in this tomb has 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 century. 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'." The former interpretation is now generally considered more likely; the ambiguity of the phrase is the subject of a famous essay by the art historian Erwin Panofsky
(see References). Either way, the sentiment was meant to set up an ironic
contrast between the shadow of death and the usual idle merriment that the nymph
s and swains of ancient Arcadia were thought to embody.
The first appearance of a tomb with a memorial inscription (to Daphnis
) amid the idyllic settings of Arcadia appears in Virgil
's Eclogues V 42 ff. Virgil took the idealized Sicilian rustics that had first appeared in the Idylls of Theocritus
and set them in the primitive Greek district of Arcadia (see Eclogues VII and X). The idea was taken up anew in the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici
in the 1460s and 1470s, during the Florentine Renaissance. In his pastoral work Arcadia (1504), Jacopo Sannazaro
fixed the Early Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyll
ic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges. The first pictorial representation of the familiar memento mori theme that was popularized in 16th-century Venice, now made more concrete and vivid by the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO, is Guercino
's version, painted between 1618 and 1622 (in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
, Rome), in which the inscription gains force from the prominent presence of a skull in the foreground, beneath which the words are carved.
Poussin's own first version of the painting (now in Chatsworth House
) was probably commissioned as a reworking of Guercino's version. It is in a far more Baroque
style than the later version, characteristic of Poussin's early work. In the Chatsworth painting the shepherds are actively discovering the half-hidden and overgrown tomb, and are reading the inscription with curious expressions. The shepherdess, standing at the left, is posed in sexually suggestive fashion, very different from her austere counterpart in the later version. The later version has a far more geometric composition and the figures are much more contemplative. The mask-like face of the shepherdess conforms to the conventions of the Classical "Greek profile".
, as yet undeciphered. The reversed composition suggests that it was copied from an engraving
, the compositions of which are commonly reversed because direct copies to the plate produce mirror images on printing.
In 1832 another relief was sculpted as part of the monument marking Poussin's tomb in Rome, on which it appears beneath a bust of the artist. In the words of the art historian Richard Verdi, it appears as if the shepherds are contemplating "their own author's death."
In conjunction with John Andrew, the artist Ian Hamilton Finlay
created a marble carving entitled "Et in Arcadia ego" in 1976. Carved below the title are the words "After Nicholas Poussin". The main part of the carving shows a military tank in a pastoral landscape.
unaware of that aspect of Latin grammar have concluded that the sentence is incomplete, missing a verb, and have speculated that it represents some esoteric message concealed in a (possibly anagrammatic) code. In The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
, Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, under the false impression that "et in arcadia ego" was not a proper Latin sentence, proposed that it is an anagram
for I! Tego arcana dei, which translates to "Begone! I keep God's secrets", suggesting that the tomb contains the remains of Jesus
or another important Biblical
figure. They claimed that Poussin was privy to this secret and that he depicted an actual location. The authors did not explain why the tomb depicted in the second version of the painting should contain this secret while the distinctly different one in the first version presumably does not. Ultimately, this view is dismissed by art historians
.
In their book The Tomb of God
, Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger, developing these ideas, have theorized that the Latin sentence misses the word "sum". They argue that the extrapolated phrase et in arcadia ego sum could be an anagram
for arcam dei tango iesu, which would mean "I touch the tomb of God — Jesus". Their argument presupposes that:
Andrews and Schellenberger also claim that the tomb portrayed is one at Les Pontils, near Rennes-le-Château
. However, Franck Marie in 1978 and Pierre Jarnac in 1985 had already concluded that this tomb was begun in 1903 by the owner of the land, Jean Galibert, who buried his wife and grandmother there in a simple grave. Their bodies were exhumed and reinterred elsewhere after the land was sold to Louis Lawrence, an American from Connecticut who had emigrated to the area. He buried his mother and grandmother in the grave and built the stone sepulchre. Marie and Jarnac had both interviewed Adrien Bourrel, Lawrence's son, who witnessed the construction of the sepulchre in 1933 when a young boy. Pierre Plantard
, the creator of the Priory of Sion
mythology, tried to argue that the sepulchre at Les Pontils was a "prototype" for Poussin's painting, but it was situated directly opposite a farmhouse (behind the foliage) and was not in the "middle of nowhere" in the French countryside, as is commonly assumed. Plantard also claimed that the phrase "Et In Arcadia Ego" had been the motto on his Family Coat-of-Arms for generations. The sepulchre was demolished in 1988 by the owner with the permission of the local authorities.
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
(1594–1665). They are pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
paintings depicting idealized shepherd
Shepherd
A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...
s from classical antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, clustering around an austere tomb
Tomb
A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes...
. The more famous second version of the subject, measuring 87 by 120 centimetres (34.25 x 47.24 in), is in the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and also goes under the name "Les bergers d'Arcadie" ("The Arcadian Shepherds").
Origin
The literal word-for-word translation of the phrase is "Even in Arcadia I (am there)". It is usually interpreted as a memento moriMemento mori
Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality...
. In Greece, during Antiquity, Greeks lived in cities close to the sea, and led an urban life. Only Arcadians, in the middle of Peloponessos, lacked cities, were far from the sea, and led a shepherd life. For urban Greeks, especially during the Hellenistic era, Arcadia symbolized pure, rural, idyllic life, far from the city. Poussin's biographer, André Félibien
André Félibien
André Félibien , sieur des Avaux et de Javercy, was a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.-Biography:...
, interpreted it to mean that "the person buried in this tomb has 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 century. For example William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
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'." The former interpretation is now generally considered more likely; the ambiguity of the phrase is the subject of a famous essay by the art historian Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography...
(see References). Either way, the sentiment was meant to set up an ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
contrast between the shadow of death and the usual idle merriment that the nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
s and swains of ancient Arcadia were thought to embody.
Daphnis
In Greek mythology, Daphnis was a son of Hermes and a Sicilian nymph. A shepherd and flautist, he was the inventor of pastoral poetry. A naiad fell in love with him, but he was not faithful to her. In revenge, she either blinded him or turned him to stone...
) amid the idyllic settings of Arcadia appears in Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Eclogues V 42 ff. Virgil took the idealized Sicilian rustics that had first appeared in the Idylls of Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
and set them in the primitive Greek district of Arcadia (see Eclogues VII and X). The idea was taken up anew in the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici
Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...
in the 1460s and 1470s, during the Florentine Renaissance. In his pastoral work Arcadia (1504), Jacopo Sannazaro
Jacopo Sannazaro
Jacopo Sannazaro was an Italian poet, humanist and epigrammist from Naples.He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in Neapolitan, but is best remembered for his humanist classic Arcadia, a masterwork that illustrated the possibilities of poetical prose in Italian, and instituted the theme of...
fixed the Early Modern perception of Arcadia as a lost world of idyll
Idyll
An idyll or idyl is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus' short pastoral poems, the Idylls....
ic bliss, remembered in regretful dirges. The first pictorial representation of the familiar memento mori theme that was popularized in 16th-century Venice, now made more concrete and vivid by the inscription ET IN ARCADIA EGO, is Guercino
Et in Arcadia ego (Guercino)
Et in Arcadia ego is a painting by the Italian Baroque artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri , from c. 1618-1622...
's version, painted between 1618 and 1622 (in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, or National Gallery of Ancient Art, is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, located on two sites: the Palazzo Barberini and the Palazzo Corsini....
, Rome), in which the inscription gains force from the prominent presence of a skull in the foreground, beneath which the words are carved.
Poussin's own first version of the painting (now in Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...
) was probably commissioned as a reworking of Guercino's version. It is in a far more Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style than the later version, characteristic of Poussin's early work. In the Chatsworth painting the shepherds are actively discovering the half-hidden and overgrown tomb, and are reading the inscription with curious expressions. The shepherdess, standing at the left, is posed in sexually suggestive fashion, very different from her austere counterpart in the later version. The later version has a far more geometric composition and the figures are much more contemplative. The mask-like face of the shepherdess conforms to the conventions of the Classical "Greek profile".
Interpretation
The most important difference between the two versions is that in the latter version, one of the two shepherds recognizes the shadow of his companion on the tomb and circumscribes the silhouette with his finger. According to an ancient tradition (see Pliny the Elder, nat. Hist. XXXV 5, 15), this is the moment in which the art of painting is first discovered. Thus, the shepherd's shadow is the first image in art history. But the shadow on the tomb is also a symbol of death (in the first version symbolized by a skull on the top of the tomb). The meaning of this highly intricate composition seems to be that, from prehistory onward, the discovery of art has been the creative response of humankind to the shocking discovery of mortality. Thus, death’s claim to rule even Arcadia is challenged by art (symbolized by the beautifully dressed maiden), who must insist that she was discovered in Arcadia too, and that she is the legitimate ruler everywhere, whilst death only usurps its power. In the face of death, art's duty—indeed, her raison d’être--is to recall absent loved ones, console anxieties, evoke and reconcile conflicting emotions, surmount isolation, and facilitate the expression of the unutterable.Sculpted versions
The undated mid-eighteenth-century marble bas-relief part of the Shepherds Monument, a garden feature at Shugborough House, Staffordshire, England, beneath it is the cryptic Shugborough inscriptionShugborough inscription
The Shugborough inscription is a sequence of letters - O U O S V A V V, between the letters D M - carved on the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in the grounds of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England, below a mirror image of Nicolas Poussin's painting, the Shepherds of Arcadia...
, as yet undeciphered. The reversed composition suggests that it was copied from an engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
, the compositions of which are commonly reversed because direct copies to the plate produce mirror images on printing.
In 1832 another relief was sculpted as part of the monument marking Poussin's tomb in Rome, on which it appears beneath a bust of the artist. In the words of the art historian Richard Verdi, it appears as if the shepherds are contemplating "their own author's death."
In conjunction with John Andrew, the artist Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE, was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.-Biography:Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to family in the countryside...
created a marble carving entitled "Et in Arcadia ego" in 1976. Carved below the title are the words "After Nicholas Poussin". The main part of the carving shows a military tank in a pastoral landscape.
Proposed hidden meanings
While the phrase "et in arcadia ego" is a nominal phrase with no finite verb, it is a well-formed construction because substantive and copular verb omission is perfectly acceptable in Latin. PseudohistoriansPseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
unaware of that aspect of Latin grammar have concluded that the sentence is incomplete, missing a verb, and have speculated that it represents some esoteric message concealed in a (possibly anagrammatic) code. In The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
, Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, under the false impression that "et in arcadia ego" was not a proper Latin sentence, proposed that it is an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
for I! Tego arcana dei, which translates to "Begone! I keep God's secrets", suggesting that the tomb contains the remains of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
or another important Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
figure. They claimed that Poussin was privy to this secret and that he depicted an actual location. The authors did not explain why the tomb depicted in the second version of the painting should contain this secret while the distinctly different one in the first version presumably does not. Ultimately, this view is dismissed by art historians
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
.
In their book The Tomb of God
The Tomb of God
The Tomb of God is a speculative non-fiction book by Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger, which charted as a number one bestseller. It claimed that the body of Jesus Christ was buried on Mt Pech Cardou by Rennes-le-Château through tracing map references within the parchments described in the...
, Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger, developing these ideas, have theorized that the Latin sentence misses the word "sum". They argue that the extrapolated phrase et in arcadia ego sum could be an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
for arcam dei tango iesu, which would mean "I touch the tomb of God — Jesus". Their argument presupposes that:
- the Latin phrase is incomplete
- the extrapolation as to the missing words is correct
- the sentence, once completed, is intended to be an anagram
- Andrews and Schellenberger selected the proper anagram out of numerous possibilities.
Andrews and Schellenberger also claim that the tomb portrayed is one at Les Pontils, near Rennes-le-Château
Rennes-le-Château
Rennes-le-Château is a commune in the Aude department in Languedoc in southern France.This small French hilltop village is known internationally, and receives tens of thousands of visitors per year, for being at the center of various conspiracy theories, and for being the location of an alleged...
. However, Franck Marie in 1978 and Pierre Jarnac in 1985 had already concluded that this tomb was begun in 1903 by the owner of the land, Jean Galibert, who buried his wife and grandmother there in a simple grave. Their bodies were exhumed and reinterred elsewhere after the land was sold to Louis Lawrence, an American from Connecticut who had emigrated to the area. He buried his mother and grandmother in the grave and built the stone sepulchre. Marie and Jarnac had both interviewed Adrien Bourrel, Lawrence's son, who witnessed the construction of the sepulchre in 1933 when a young boy. Pierre Plantard
Pierre Plantard
Pierre Athanase Marie Plantard was a French draughtsman, best known for being the principal perpetrator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960s onwards that he was a Merovingian descendant of Dagobert II and the "Great Monarch" prophesied by Nostradamus.-Surname:Pierre...
, the creator of the Priory of Sion
Priory of Sion
The Prieuré de Sion, translated from French as Priory of Sion, is a name given to multiple groups, both real and fictitious. The most notorious is a fringe fraternal organisation, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard...
mythology, tried to argue that the sepulchre at Les Pontils was a "prototype" for Poussin's painting, but it was situated directly opposite a farmhouse (behind the foliage) and was not in the "middle of nowhere" in the French countryside, as is commonly assumed. Plantard also claimed that the phrase "Et In Arcadia Ego" had been the motto on his Family Coat-of-Arms for generations. The sepulchre was demolished in 1988 by the owner with the permission of the local authorities.
Other appearances
- Et in arcadia ego is also the title of Book One of Evelyn Waugh'sEvelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
Brideshead RevisitedBrideshead RevisitedBrideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
in which the narrator, Charles Ryder, describes his room decorated with a skull bearing the phrase. - The phrase further appears in Cormac McCarthy'sCormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
novel Blood Meridian when the character Tobin informs The Kid that the phrase is the name Judge HoldenJudge HoldenJudge Holden is purportedly a historical person, a murderer who partnered with John Joel Glanton as a professional scalphunter in the mid-19th century. To date, the only source for Holden's existence is Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession, an autobiographical account which has been criticized as...
has ascribed to his rifle, noting "A reference to the lethal in it." - Ben Okri'sBen OkriBen Okri OBE FRSL is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri has become the leading figure of his generation of Nigerian writers who have largely abandoned the social and historical themes of Chinua Achebe, and brought together modernist narrative strategies and Nigerian oral and literary...
In Arcadia follows a filmcrew shooting a documentary about Nicolas Poussin'sNicolas PoussinNicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
painting. - Et in Arcadia ego was the originally planned title of Tom StoppardTom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
's play, ArcadiaArcadia (play)Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge...
, in which the phrase is used erroneously by one character (whose misuse is acknowledged by two other characters). The phrase also reflects the themes of the play itself. - "Et in Arcadia Ego" is also the title of a work by the Czech science fiction writer Simon Sedivak, where Arcadia is described as a planet.
- ArcadiaArcadia (band)Arcadia were the pop group formed in 1985 by Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor of Duran Duran, during a break in that band's schedule. However, Roger Taylor appeared in only a few band photographs and in none of the music videos, and stated he was only to be involved in the recording side...
was the name of Duran Duran'sDuran DuranDuran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
spin off band formed in 1985 by Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor reportedly because of the inscription on this painting.
Further reading
- Verdi, Richard, "On the Critical Fortunes - And Misfortunes - Of Poussin's 'Arcadia'", The Burlington MagazineThe Burlington MagazineThe Burlington Magazine is a monthly academic journal that covers the fine and decorative arts. It is the longest running art journal in the English language and it is a charitable organisation since 1986. It was established in 1903 by a group of art historians and connoisseurs which included Roger...
, Vol. 121, No. 911 (Feb., 1979), pp. 95–107