I now reside in a small port town on the east coast of the Peloponnese, Greece, in the province of Arcadia, and was actually born in a nearby mountain village.
When people ask me where I live, I jokingly respond: “Et in Arcadia ego.”
To this some intellectuals have replied: “You Greeks think everything has to do with you. Nicolas Poussin’s painting has nothing to do with Greece. He painted it and it represents Arcadia, France.”
But it doesn’t, for it represents an ancient Arcadian area of the Peloponnese.
For years well-known artists and historians made the argument: “That is impossible, for during Poussin’s lifetime Greece was under Ottoman occupation and the clothing worn by the figures would reflect that.”
I too had heard and read about the mysterious Poussin’s painting (pictured above), and having a background in financial and forensic auditing, and some time on my hands, I thought I would also jump in and give it a shot.
Interestingly, the Wikipedia page which included Poussin’s painting had also included “The Shugborough Shepherds Monument.”
That had been a first big clue that the two were somehow related.
Nicolas Poussin was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style and had spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects which were characterized by clarity, logic and order.
The marble relief mirrored Poussin’s painting, except for an extra sarcophagus, which was missing from the painting.
“ET IN ARCADIA EGO” had been chiseled onto the relief where the paining had shown some illegible letters.
I decided to ignore the monument’s mysteries and inconsistencies for they seemed to only confuse.
Instead, I turned my attention the painting and its main mystery: “The shadow that should be but is not of the kneeling man’s hand, but instead was of a sickle.” The shadow of the agricultural tool used for reaping grain crops.
What was Poussin trying to say with the shadow? And why was the second sarcophagus missing from his painting?
Turning my attention back to the marble relief I noticed that it is nothing less than a masterpiece. It must have been created by a very talented sculptor I thought, noticing the very fine chiseled details.
After a bit of research, I found that the monument was said to have been built and sculpted by a Flemish sculptor, Peter Scheemakers, sometime between 1748 and 1763, and that it was commissioned by Thomas Anson and paid for by his brother, Admiral George Anson, both sons of William Anson who had purchased the Shugborough manor in 1624.
Scheemakers was best known for a memorial to William Shakespeare, erected in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. I looked up some of his other work and saw that it was mostly of large statues. His other pieces were nothing like marble reliefs.
Then I noticed something I had missed before: that the two young men portrayed in both pieces had wreaths of olive branches over their heads. This meant that both pieces most likely portrayed the classical Greek period, because that is when the Olympic Games took place. The olive wreath, known as “kotinos,” was the prize for the winners of the games in ancient Olympia.
The wreath, though simple, came with great honor and recognition, and only the winners of the different events got to wear the intertwined olive leaf wreaths on their heads.
Both pieces depict a natural landscape scene, and the tomb located next to what seems to be an olive tree.
Yes, the two young men were holding long thin sticks but that does not necessarily make it “a pastoral scene.” They most likely did so to ward off wild animals, as people that go on nature walks continue to do to this day in Greece.
Had the young men recently competed and won at some Olympic event and afterwards stopped at a family tomb to share their great news with deceased relatives? Had it possibly been a monument honoring a great athlete who had passed? Had it possibly been located in ancient Olympia?
Those were the questions that were going through my mind.
I started looking at the other parts of the monument, for the marble relief is part of a very large monument with two columns on the side and ornate decorations on top and it is almost as tall as the trees found next to it. Now I was starting to wonder more about the monument than the painting. I had a strong suspicion that this is where the answers to the mysteries were found.
It was now clear that Poussin was just doing what other great artists and scientists had done generations before him, during the age of religious intolerance and oppression. Just as Leonardo da Vinci had done, he was hiding messages in his painting for people of the future to figure out.
“Et in Arcadia Ego,” the name of the painting, meant that the monument was from the Arcadia region of the Peloponnese.
The extra sarcophagus missing from the painting ties in with the shadow of the sickle, reflecting that “the monument was taken.”
It had been painted in reverse to draw attention to the monument.
He may also be telling us even more, for the title is all in French except for the word “in” word which is Latin. Was he saying that he had seen it “in” England? Possibly on the grounds of the Shugborough residence a century before the date it was claimed to have been commission and sculpted?
Above the marble relief on the sides of the monument are two stone heads, one showing a smiling man, the other the god Pan and under a large mantel is a meander motif, or the “Greek Key” design.
Yes, I believe this is the case, that it is another case of an important ancient Greek monument sitting on a foreign land.
About the author
Diane Ioannou was living in Southern California when a breakdown brought her back to Greece, to a small port town not far from her birthplace. In this town, she discovered that her background and training as a business consultant, research professional and forensic auditor made her a capable historical analyst, mystery solver and effective code breaker. She began to search for clues into the ancient history, mythology and even magic of the “mythical Peloponnese.” She is now working on a series of books regarding the Peloponnese’s antiquity, which she finds to be full of uncovered mysteries. The recently published series is named “ARTEMIS CHILD,” a title that represents the type of strength and endurance that she has found inside herself to get through a difficult transition.
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1 comment
It is well established that the site of the old stone tomb Poussin used in the painting (and who undoubtedly had it erected), is in the small hamlet of Pontils just off the D613 Road to Arques in the Aude region of France, where it is known locally as Tomb of Arques or Poussin’s Tomb – Arques is ‘Arcadia’ … The secret of the painting is in the shadows. When one stands on the road bridge at Pontils looking across the ravine at the site of the old tomb one is facing south. Even in Poussin’s day shadows did not fall on the north face of the edifice. Were that possible, the shadows are still not true. From the projection of the shadow it should follow that the second shepherds shadow of his forearm and hand (not a sickle) should be pointing at the third shepherd’s knee, instead, both the second shepherds finger and its shadow are ‘touching’ the shadow of the second shepherds forehead, as is the finger of the third shepherd. Furthermore, the third Shepherd is drawing the viewers attention to this. The secret of the painting is in the shadow and the heads of the shepherds.
When Berenguer Sauniere the priest of Rennes-le-Chateau discovered the parchments in his Altar pillar, he realised the symbol on Parchment 2 was a monogram and read, ‘N Povsin’. He also saw the symbol on P 1 – the ‘triangle with tails’ – could be drawn through the heads of the Shepherds on Poussin’s 1638 ‘Arcadian Shepherds’ painting. He further noted the second Shepherd was pointing at the letter ‘R’ (followed by the ‘C’) in the word ARCADIA … R-le-C … the first Shepherd. The heads of the Shepherds are hills, the painting is a map (see French map 2347 Quillan Alet-les-Bains) – or Google Earth). The second shepherd is the low Hill Bois du Lauzet, the 3rd is the hill Auriol and the tall shepherdess is the high hill Cardou (end of upper tail) … On the map, a line drawn from R-le-C through Auriol heads straight towards Rennes les Bains (the lower tail) – The symbol on P2 also names the place of the Treasure.
At Shugborough the two lower letters, the ‘D’ and the ‘M’ refer to (King) Dagobert Merovingian. The upper line letters, O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V broadly translate as, Observer Use the Object at Shugborough to View or understand, Also VISA VERSA. The relief picture is best seen as the reverse of a transparency (Visa Versa) … [It is as if one was standing on the hill at R-le-C looking back towards Pontils] … This ‘VV’ also applies to the Chinese House, which is located on the West side of the group of monuments, when theoretically it should be where the Doric Temple stands … that is until one understands why Thomas Anson placed it where it is … On the Monument, the shepherd’s thumb of his left hand is immediately after the ‘R’ in Arcadia – alphabetically followed by the ‘S’, his index finger is planted on the ‘N’ in the second word ‘IN’. The word ‘Ego’ is dropped from the end of ‘Et In Arcadia Ego’ to leave ‘Et IN ARCADIA’. The thumb ‘picks up’ the ‘S’ and the finger overwrites the ‘N’, thus reading ‘ET IS ARCADIA’ – or, ‘Also in Arcadia’ … All the monuments are Templar based and tell an intriguing story.
Geoffrey