SHEPHERDS OF ARCADIA : THE SECRET OF AN EXCEPTIONAL PAINTING

Summary

In a few words, for the english-speaking public, we introduce here a cultural web site aiming at a renewed comprehension of the worldwide famous painting : "The Shepherds of Arcadia" (The Arcadian Shepherds), by Nicolas POUSSIN.

We cannot enter into the full details of our hypothesis, having not a sufficient mastery of english language, but the principal facts to consider are :

- according to a reliable historic source (a letter written by the brother of the minister for finance of Louis the fourteenth), Nicolas POUSSIN held an important secret, never understood by modern researchers ; nevertheless, it is supposed by the most accurate specialists to have been an archeological site hidden in italian provinces of Latium (around Rome) or Campania (around Napoles) ;

Indeed, during the seventeenth century, such a site had a great value, like a treasure of roman and greek sculptures. So, we can understand the discretion of POUSSIN.

- if we scan the entire work of POUSSIN, we see the Sheperds of Arcadia (second version ; Louvre museum ; the first version can be seen in the Chatsworth Settlement, in England) as a very curious painting, far from the symbolic clearness of his others mythologic or religious interpretations ;

For example, the question : "Who says : ET IN ARCADIA EGO ?", words carved on the tomb, has deeply divided specialists in painting history, concerning that second version, without reaching a definite answer.

- surprisingly, we can recognise the shepherds as looking like the constellations of Hercules, Bootes, Ophiucus and Virgo ; that is certainly a big oddity, because nothing implied such a resemblance in the virgilian theme of a group of shepherds meditating upon a tomb in the countryside...

- in the fact, one of the main clues to penetrate the meaning of this painting is the virgilian elegiac atmosphere created by POUSSIN (compare with the first version of the Shepherds of Arcadia, which is absolutely not elegiac) : in a sudden intuition, we can suppose each of the male shepherds being a work of Virgil - the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid poems - and the woman as the town of Napoles (Parthenope was its ancient greek name, that is to say in latin : the Virgin) ;

why Napoles ? Because exists a so-called Virgil's Tomb in that town of Campania, well hnown in the seventeeth century.

As soon as we accept the idea that the symbolic purpose of this painting was to drive the mind toward Virgil, and especially toward the Virgil's Tomb, we must go to Napoles and understand a little further.

When we are on the spot of the tomb, we can decipher what POUSSIN intended to suggest : on the other side of the bay, today we see and visit easily the city of Herculanum - the famous roman town destroyed during the year 79 A.D. by an eruption of the Vesuvius volcano and discovered during the eighteenth century - one century after the painting of "The Shepherds of Arcadia". But during the seventeenth century, period POUSSIN lived in, it was completely buried under the ground and lost. To know exactly where the city extended was an important secret because of the numerous statues and artistic objects hidden in the ruins.

Indeed, it was the reason why the knelt shepherd reading the inscription on the tomb looked like the constellation of Hercules (Herculanum was "The city of Hercules").

In summary, the symbolic method used by POUSSIN was :

- to show a tomb ;

- to create a virgilian elegiac atmosphere ;

- to give to the shepherds the symbolic appearance of some constellations in the sky ;

We are sorry not to give here all the scientific arguments of our assumption, but the translation (able to resist criticisms) would be rather hard, because of the high level requested. Some day, may be, if you support the site. In any case, have a look to the images of the site, which are rather speaking by themselves.