08/01/2026
«Et in Arcadia ego» Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino)
«Et in Arcadia ego» is the enigmatic title of one of Guercino's masterpieces from National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome. It is an unfinished phrase from the sarcophagus depicted in the lower corner of the painting: «And in Arcadia I…». It could most likely end with «exist». It is supposed to refer to death. The artist has depicted a night scene where in the middle of the moonlit romantic valley two shepherds are looking in wonder and thoughtfulness at a skull lying on the lid of a stone tomb with a large black fly crawling on it and a mouse sitting next to it. We get the feeling that this very skull, and thus death itself, is having a conversation with two young men. The shepherds listen to its words and reflect on the transience of human life.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri was born in 1591 in Cento, near Ferrara. He was nicknamed Guercino because of his squint, which did not stop him neither from choosing an artistic career nor from creating many intricate perspectives during his artistic life (not without the help of his straight-eyed colleagues, of course). Like most artists of Ferrara and Bologna he was strongly influenced by Ludovico Caracci, the undisputed coryphaeus of Bolognese school of painting. He also learned a great deal from Caravaggio and from the famous Venetian artists. The painting in question was executed after his trip to Venice and immediately after his arrival in Rome. It cannot be regarded as a completely independent masterpiece without mentioning another one - Apollo and Marsius, commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo II and conserved in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
In the Florentine painting we see Apollo swinging his knife at the poor satyr, and in the background there are two observers, the same thoughtful shepherds which we've seen already in the other painting . Apparently, thinking over the plot for the Grand Duke, Guercino made sketches, one of which then turned into an independent painting, and what a painting! Beautiful and enigmatic, which has prompted art historians to numerous studies. He filled it with his fresh impressions of the Venetian art and with allegorical meaning. The intellectuals of the time were fond of Virgil, and it was the Bucolics that inspired the artist to reflect upon death, present everywhere, even in beautiful Arcadia.
Guercino turned to the theme of memento mori at the beginning of his glorious career and drew attention of Roman aristocrats, lovers of ancient literature. Then other artists followed him exploiting the same subject. A little later the French painter Nicolas Poussin who lived and died in Rome, would return to the same theme in his art creating great paintings, one of which you can see now in the Louvre museum . The allegory of death in the idyllic Arcadia would become so entwined with his name that would accompany the author to the afterlife. If you go to Poussin's tomb in the Roman church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, you will see below his portrait the bas-relief that depicts shepherds leaning over somebodies grave.
Anna, your tour guide for Rome and in the Vatican
