''Et in Arcadia ego'' (also known as ''The Arcadian Shepherds'') is a painting by the Italian
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
The painting shows two young shepherds staring at a skull, with a mouse and a blowfly, placed onto a cippus 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 ''
memento mori
''Memento mori'' (Latin for 'remember that you ave todie'Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
since Renaissance times.
Elias L. Rivers suggested the phrase "Et in Arcadia ego" is derived from a line from Daphnis' funeral in Virgil'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.
Mentioned for the first time in the collection of Antonio Barberini in 1644, the painting was later acquired by Colonna of Sciarra (1812), being attributed to
Bartolomeo Schedoni
Bartolomeo Schedoni (sometimes Schedone) (1578 – 23 December 1615) was an Italian early Baroque painter from Modena.
Biography
He was born in Modena, and moved to Parma with his father, a mask-maker who served the Farnese court. In 1595 Schedo ...
until 1911.
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the 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 mythological subjects painted for a ...
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 by Apollo'' in Palazzo Pitti (1618), where the same group of shepherds is present.
In literature and pop culture
Goethe's ''Italian Journey'' (1816) has "Et In Arcadia Ego" as its motto. Goethe viewed Guercino's painting in Cento (17 October 1786).
Hans Christian Andersen's "Improvisatoren" (1835) in chapter 13 two of the main characters discuss the painting.
William Faulkner's 1923 novel "The Sound And The Fury" mentions "Et in Arcadia Ego" in reference to Maury, a mentally disabled man.
"Et in Arcadia Ego" is the title of Book One of '' Evelyn Waughs '' Brideshead Revisited'' (1945).
Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" in chapter 10. It is the name of the Judge's gun.
Tom Stoppard's 1993 play ''Arcadia'' implicitly references Guercino's painting in its title and explicitly alludes to the painting in Act 1, scene 1. Lady Croom first mistranslates it slightly as "Here I am in Arcadia!", missing the implication of death, but Septimus later translates it correctly, in reference to the killing of pigeons (, pp. 25–27). The painting works to foreground the play's focus on the beauty of life and the reality of death.
In the 2017 game Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hackers Memory "Even In Arcadia, There Am I" is the name given to the 17th chapter.
"Et In Arcadia Ego" is the title of the ninth and tenth episodes of the first season of '' Star Trek: Picard''
"Et In Arcadia Ego" is the title of the first episode of the first season of '' Brideshead Revisited''
See also
*
Allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
*
Baroque painting
Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and Catholic Revival,Et in Arcadia ego'' by
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the 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 mythological subjects painted for a ...