Dialogue in a Labyrinth
The director of the museum wore a red scarf over his shoulder and a dark suit. The red scarf seemed to energise him. He spoke with great enthusiasm and feeling. Like all experts, he was not interested in dialogue, only in communicating what he had contemplated for many years. At first this absence of dialogue was irritating to Lao, who saw the film as a quest, not as a lecture, as dance, not as monument. But Lao made concessions, and much that was fruitful emerged from the clanking of their armour.
Lao: It is a pleasure to meet you, Director, and a pleasure to be here at the Louvre, in the presence of the genius of Poussin. Our film is about Arcadia and its incarnation in art, music, literature, and the human spirit. You are an expert on the work of Nicolas Poussin. Can you tell us something about this painting and Arcadia and what it whispers to us about human life?
Director: Absolutely. It is a very famous picture. It is an icon of classicism. And it tells us a sad story, in a way. The story is simple: there are four people, they are walking into a landscape, and they discover a tomb. On this tomb is written Et in Arcadia Ego. They are looking at this inscription. They are in various stages of understanding. One of them is showing the inscription to a girl, a beautiful girl. But what does the inscription mean? It means that even in Arcadia, even in earthly paradise, even where everyone is happy, death is present. These four are discovering the existence of death. Two of them are looking very happy together, but now they know that this happiness will end…
Lao: How do you account for its fame?
Director: It’s hard to say. It was originally commissioned by a cardinal and he wanted a quality of moral poetry in the painting.
Lao: A beautiful phrase – moral poetry.
Director. The painting is a meditation, and something more. That is always Poussin’s greatness. He is not only a man of events. He is also a man of thinking, of thought.
Lao: In Guercino’s painting there is a skull.
Director: Yes, and also in the first version of Poussin’s painting. But in this second version the skull has disappeared. It has now become not even a dead man, but Death.
Lao: Tell me about this quality of contemplation.
Director: Well, there is also the fact that we find ourselves looking at the picture. We are enjoying it. But we know at the same time that one day we will no more enjoy the picture.
Lao: So the painting should induce a sense of humility, and also a sense of enjoying what is present because the present is the only thing that is real. This is why I am fascinated by the painting. It poses – or rather it brings together this complementary relationship between death and happiness. The inevitability of death and also the possibility of happiness. Is one to take from this painting the feeling that a wise sense of death should increase our capacity for happiness because we realise how transient life is? Or should it make us sober, humble, reflective, quieter, less ambitious?
Director: These are the questions that Poussin would have liked you to ask. In a way, Poussin doesn’t give answers to such questions. He prefers you to find yourself asking such questions in front of his pictures. But he leaves you free to choose what you like. Especially at this point in his career. He is still a young man.
Lao: How old would you say?
Director: Between thirty-eight and thirty-nine.
Lao: Why has this picture caught the imagination of the world?
Director: To my mind it is not the greatest picture of Poussin. But to answer your question I think that it was a very clear image of death for the succeeding centuries. Its artistry and iconography have been much studied and many have tried to explain this special painting.
Lao: But why does happiness, Arcadia, and a sense of tranquillity have to be opposed with death in order for us to feel them more strongly?
Director: For centuries many have discussed the meaning of the inscription. Some say that Poussin made a mistake in his interpretation of the Latin words. Perhaps chance has entered into its enigma.
(Lao laughed. The director continued.)
Director: But also painters use images, not words. They don’t need to be precise with words. Poussin makes us concerned and involved with what is going on in the painting. The cardinal told Poussin to paint ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’; and he had to transform this brief into an image. He seems to want it interpreted in different ways. You spoke about ambiguity. I think that in a way if you close the image, if you have all the answers to your question about a picture…
Lao: Oh, it dies, it dies…
Director: Yes, it dies. And being a diligent painter he knew that by not giving a clear answer to this question he would maintain the attention and the intentions of the centuries towards his works of art. He knew that death is there and that we all die; but he also knew that this picture tells us something about himself and that creating these images is his way of surviving.
Lao: I’d like to ask you a private question about the Arcadian theme. One cannot say with any certainty that everyone has an Arcadia. But one can say that everyone needs an Arcadia. Listening to you speak with such feeling about Poussin’s painting makes me wonder whether you too have some private place of enchantment. What is your Arcadia?
Director: Well, I think it is the Louvre on a Tuesday, a day when the museum is closed and the museum is all my own. I also think that in a certain way museums are the Arcadias of our age.
Lao: Tell me more about that.
Director: When you see the crowds in the museum on certain days you find yourself wondering about this, about Arcadia. But when the museum is nearly empty people come in here and I’m quite sure they find their Arcadia here.
Lao: What form does it take?
Director: Meditation. Walking round the museum. Enjoying an image. Singing to one’s self. Going backwards and forward. Being able to escape from everyday life, from the rumours of the city. I’m quite convinced that the great success of museums in our day, and not just the Louvre, is in part connected with Arcadia. Evasion might also be a good word.
Lao: There is in Arcadia the notion of escape, but also that of death.
Director: Yes.
Lao: Does the painting suggest that a sense of death and its inevitability might increase one’s sense of peace?
Director: Many people think that museums are the churches of our age. In churches you had to learn how to face death. Some pictures teach us how to face death with dignity and with greatness. Poussin was a stoic. There is beauty in facing things the right way.
Lao: What is this stoic attitude to beauty. Is it because Arcadia and beauty are linked?
Director: For Poussin the purpose of art was delectation. The moral lesson of the picture is crucial, but at the end the real point of his pictures was delectation and pleasure. He did not try to please the crowds. He was more inclined to do pictures for the happy few.
Lao: One final question. Could you elaborate on the idea that the museums of this world also constitute an Arcadia?
Director: People come here to forget the troubles of everyday life. They come here because they know that contact with great masterpieces improves them in a way. There is in museums a morality. There is a way of life. In our age one feels that those in charge of museums have to think deeply on such points and about the public’s continual coming here. The public do not only expect to see great works of art. They expect something more, and we have to try to find out what it is exactly. Arcadia is a good answer.