Et In Arcadia Ego (hanging in Louvre Museum, Paris) must be one of Poussin’s most famous paintings. The main reason for this renown, according to critics (read Wikipedia article on Et In Arcadia Ego), lies in this piece being a visual representation of the art of painting, no less. Though this interpretation might seem remote, and self-referential, it becomes clearer upon closer examination.
Poussin painted two versions, the one below achieving the status it enjoys today: it depicts three shepherds and a woman gathered around a sarcophagus, engaged in mourning, reading, discussing, and contemplating the lapidary vision.
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Poussin’s Eliezer and Rebecca presents a curious departure from the solemn subject matter often preferred by the painter. This is an everyday scene where the majority of the actors perform everyday tasks; Eliezer himself, if we remember, was a servant. In this piece Poussin offers a generous and keen psychological portrait of girlhood, describing a blend of realistic emotions modern observers can easily identify with. Though the artist illuminates this encounter in a favorable light, he avoids sentimentality or aggrandizement.
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The Judgement of Solomon (hanging in Louvre Museum, Paris) is another painting where Poussin found, I believe, a precise balance between color and composition. While the influence of Venice makes itself evident in the rich red, orange, and blue of the robes, it’s the rigorous geometrical organization, unusually austere when compared to the often overabundant Italians of High Renaissance and later periods, that underlies and informs this piece. Both color and composition provide layers of meaning, and combined they produce a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.
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Gathering of Manna is a large scale mythological painting (hanging in Louvre Museum, Paris) that conveys the dramatic force of the biblical divine act of the distribution of the Manna. The canvas aims to depict an entire people by showing groups of representative actors of both sexes and all ages. In a way, the scene is a rare occurrence: everyone is an active participant, as everyone must participate in order to survive; there is no room for psychological ambivalence. By choosing a theme with a secured engrossing dramatic impulse, Poussin might have attempted to explore pantheistic and holistic ideas (and ideals) of the relationship of all humanity with God. The Gathering of Manna is a unique case of reverse offering, which reinforces the symbiotic nature of that relationship.
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Some critics consider The Death of Germanicus (painted in 1627, in France, hanging in the The Minneapolis Institute of Arts), Nicolas Poussin’s early masterpiece. The painting presents a linear, barelief-like scene with several emotional pivots, all induced by the death of the Roman general (read full Britannica article on Germanicus Julius Caesar). Lying on the bed and enshrouded in white, he is immediately recognized; the ghastly greenish tone of his face implies poisoning, the most probable cause of death according to historians.
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