''Et in Arcadia ego'' (also known as ''The Arcadian Shepherds'') is an oil-on-canvas painting created c. 1618–1622 by the Italian
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
artist
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino). It is now on display in the
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica of
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
.
Description
The painting shows two young shepherds staring at a skull, with a mouse and a blowfly, placed onto a
cippus
A () was a low, round, or rectangular pedestal set up by the Ancient Romans for purposes such as a milestone or a boundary post. They were also used for somewhat differing purposes by the Etruscans and Carthaginians.
Roman cippi
Roman cippi w ...
with the words "Et in Arcadia ego" (Also in Paradise I am). This phrase is meant as a warning, that even in Arcadia/Paradise, death is always present. The phrase appears for the first time in art and architecture in this work. The iconography of the ''
'' theme symbolised in art by the skull was rather popular in Rome and
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
since Renaissance times.
Elias L. Rivers suggested the phrase "Et in Arcadia ego" is derived from a line from
Daphnis
In Greek mythology, Daphnis (; , from , ''daphne'', "Bay Laurel") was a legendary Sicilian cowherd who was said to be the inventor of pastoral poetry. According to Diodorus the Sicilian (1st century BC), Daphnis was born in the Heraean Mountai ...
' funeral in
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...
's Fifth
Eclogue ''Daphnis ego in silvis'' ("Daphnis was I amid the woods"), and that it referred to the dead shepherd within the tomb, rather than Death itself.
[Elias L. Rivers, "Foreword", to Bruno Mario Damiani, Bárbara Louise Mujica, ''Et In Arcadia Ego: Essays on Death in the Pastoral Novel'' (Lanham and New York: University Press of America, 1990). ]
Mentioned for the first time in the collection of
Antonio Barberini
Antonio Barberini (5 August 1607 – 3 August 1671) was an Italian people, Italian Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Cardinal (Catholicism), cardinal, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims, Archbishop of Reims, military leader, patron of the arts a ...
in 1644, the painting was later acquired by
Colonna of Sciarra (1812), being attributed to
Bartolomeo Schedoni until 1911.
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythologic ...
also made two paintings on the topic of ''
Et in Arcadia ego'', less than two decades later.
The painting is connected with Guercino's ''The Flaying of
Marsyas
In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas (; ) is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double oboe (''aulos'') that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of ...
by Apollo'' in
Palazzo Pitti
The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...
(1618), where the same group of shepherds is present.
In literature and pop culture
Hans Christian Andersen's "Improvisatoren" (1835) in chapter 13 two of the main characters discuss the painting, reflecting the attribution to Schedoni believed at that time.
See also
*
Allegory
As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...
References
External links
Official Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Et In Arcadia Ego (Guercino)
1622 paintings
Paintings by Guercino
Collection of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica
Paintings about death
Skulls in art
Insects in art
Mice and rats in art