POUSSIN

Les Bergers d'Arcadie

The view from Arques showing the same landscape depicted on the right hand side of Poussin's painting above.

 An X-ray of the painting Les Bergers d'Arcadie

Notice that the tomb is painted over the staff which means that Poussin painted the staff first. Why would Poussin break a rule and paint foreground first?

In the late 1620s, Nicholas Poussin produced a number of sketches of the Annunciation, culminating in a painting that still survives at Chantilly. Internal evidence suggests a 15th-century influence, and the relative positions of the figures in the painting are reminiscent of those in the Aix panel¹, but to read anything into this would be clutching at straws. Much more interesting is the second version of this theme, painted in 1657. The iconography is very unusual. Mary sits cross-legged like an eastern woman, her arms open wide, while the angel makes hieratic gestures rare in 17th-century Annunciations, but more common in the 15th. J. Costello (quoted by Friedlaender5) is of the opinion that this painting was a design for a funeral monument to Poussin's friend and mentor Cassianio del Pozzo, an antiquarian scholar of distinction. This is a decidedly odd theme for a funeral monument, but Friedlaender offers some observations which are enlightening. Pozzo was to be buried in the Church of Sta Maria Topa Minerva, which stood on the site of an ancient sanctuary of the goddess Isis, and Friedlaender suggests that Poussin's painting combines the characteristics of three divinities - Mary, Minerva and Isis. He also observes that the posture of the female figure seems to represent the sedes sapientiae - seat of wisdom.

Poussin is known to have been a profound student of ancient myths from original sources. He often referred to Ripa's Iconologia, constantly carried Cartari's Images of the Gods with him, and embodied Neoplatonic doctrines in his paintings. (A fact not lost upon W.B. Yeats, who based the symbology of his own Neoplatonic poem, "News for the Delphic Oracle", upon the artist's Marriage of Thetis and Peleus.) Poussin's paintings contain multiple layers of meaning, often blending Pagan and Christian themes. One of the major sources of his learning was the library of Pozzo.

The Annunciation is the only late painting by Poussin that is signed and dated. It also contains a large inscription to commemorate the fact that it was painted in the reign of the Chigi Pope Alexander VII, an opponent of Cardinal Mazarin advisor to Louis XIV of France. Poussin might have been thought to have taken quite a risk when he mentioned the Pope in such a painting, but it seems that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Annunciation by Nicolas Poussin 1655	Annunciation by Nicolas Poussin 1657

Why did Poussin relate this second 1657 painting of the Annunciation to Pope Alexander VII, son of a banker?

Could it be that in his reign as Pope Alexander VII put an end to Heliocentrism issue.

Pope Alexander VII published his Index Librorum Prohibitorum Alexandri VII Pontificis Maximi jussu editus which he prefaced with the Bull Speculatores Dominus Israel in which he explicitly attached all the previous heliocentric decrees.

1. Note On January 21st 1932 an article appeared in the London Times suggesting that the Aix Panel had been painted by a Satanist.

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•  Problem with the painting Les Bergere d'Arcadie (Louvre)

Professor Cornford's analysis of Les Bergere d'Arcadie This analysis does not include the part of the painting covered by the frame. Conjecture tells me that Cornford was told to look for a Pentacle in the painting.

The actual extent of the painting.

Here shows the frame removed revealing the true size of the Shepherds of Arcadia painting. Notice that the painting is tilted also.

by using Schellenberger and Andrews analysis and the new size we find that using the shepherd's staffs we now have this.

Though not included the staff on the right held by the Red Shepherd makes a seven pointed figure inside the same circle also centring on the same spot.

 Schellenberger and Andrews also describe how they think that the painting has been slightly altered as they have found three distinctive versions of this painting. Page 114 - Tomb of God

Louis XIV obtained possession of this painting in 1685 and kept it hidden. Why?

The Abbé Louis Fouquet wrote to his brother Nicolas Fouquet in April 1656 who had been Superintendent of finances at the court of Louis XIV. He said:

"He [Poussin] and I discussed certain things, which I shall with ease be able to explain to you in detail - things which will give you, through Monsieur Poussin, advantages which even kings would have great pains to draw from him, and which, according to him, it is possible that nobody else will ever discover in the centuries to come. And what is more, these are things so difficult to discover that nothing now on this earth can prove of better fortune nor be their equal.”

When Fouquet's wealth began to rival that of the King he was suddenly arrested he spent the last twenty years of his life a prisoner. The king acquired Poussin's painting Les Bergers d'Arcadie but it was not however put on display, it was locked away in his private apartments in Versailles. Despite what Paul smith says local farmers say that a tombstone has been there as long as they can remember and there is even apparantly a mention of it by the Abbé Delmas dating from the early 18th century. The Delmas document does exist but is in a private possession in Limoux.

A expansion of the centre of the circle marked by the Shepherd's staffs reveals:

Montségur?

There are other reasons in the painting to reach the conclusion that Poussin is alluding to Montségur here.   

A full analysis of both the Poussin and Teniers paintings with some startling, previously unmentioned revelations will appear in my book which will released soon.