Subject:
Et in Arcadia Ego (1637 ? 38) (translation: Even in Arcadia I (am there)) by Nicolas Poussin The second version of Poussin?s painting hangs in the Louvre in Paris. It is a ?pastoral? painting showing idealized shepherds from antiquity clustered around a tomb. This version also goes under the name "Les bergers d'Arcadie" ("The Shepherds of Arcadia"). In ancient Greece, only Arcadians, who live in the middle of Peloponessos, lived the life of shepherds. For the Greeks who lived in cities, Arcadia symbolized a rural and idyllic life far from the city. Poussin's biographer interpreted the phrase 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.
