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Part 6: Arcadia

2. Summer and Winter (The Opposites in the Cycle)

The very first painting to feature the enigmatic phrase, ET IN ARCADIA EGO was painted by Guercino sometime between 1618 and 1622. Two young shepherds are featured: one cleanly shaven and dressed in white and the other bearded; dressed in rustic red and wearing a red cap. Yet again, we have the theme of the symbolic Red and White, which keeps cropping up in many different sources.

 

Both shepherds are looking at a worm and fly-infested skull on a stone pedestal on which the famous words ET IN ARCADIA EGO are inscribed.

  These two individuals are clearly leaning away from each other, and almost like Jesus and John the Evangelist (which some say is really Mary Magdalene) in Leonardo Da Vinci’s mural – The Last Supper.  This symbolises division. So then it’s possible that the shaven figure in white could even be a female – which again, reinforces the theme of opposites as in male and female and positive and negative – and this is a further clue as to what these two individuals really represent.

  It is agreed by many that these two individuals are Cain and Abel – the sons of Adam and Eve, but again this has symbolic connotations relating to the polar opposites expressed in Abel “good” and Cain “evil”. If these two figures are Cain and Abel then does the skull belong to Adam their father?

  Guercino may have been privy to the same information as Poussin and Da Vinci before him, and if so, then I thought it likely that the painting could also contain symbolic references to Osiris and therefore also clues pertaining to what may indeed be a catastrophe that tilted the earth’s axis and which then began the cycles of the seasons – i.e., the swing between summer and winter . . . and indeed, this is what we find.

 

In my interpretation, the two individuals could also be the brothers Osiris and Set – the skull representing the supreme father god Atum-Ra. The skull is symbolic, in that it appears to represent the human race at the time of the 'Golden Age', now dead and gone due to a cataclysm of some kind that possibly tipped the axis away from the 'ecliptic centre' - the abode of the father god Atum-Ra.

  The two shepherds could also be Horus and Set – the skull belonging to Osiris. In any case, we seem to have here the universal Triad or Trinity, being the ‘One’ (represented by the skull), which after the “fall” has divided itself into opposites (represented by the two shepherds).

  Again, the two shepherds are each holding a staff. The staff held by the shepherd in white is long. The staff held by the shepherd in red is very short.

  Also, if we draw a line through the centre of the jaw of the skull and in-between the eye sockets we will find that the skull is leaning at an angle of 23.5 degrees.

 

Above, and on top of the vertical pedestal-like feature in the background is an ‘All Seeing Eye’.

  I would interpret this painting to be symbolic of the “fall of man” and that this “fall” was associated with the belief in the fall of the earth and the axis from its vertical alignment with the One – the source-centre of creation - as also represented here by the skull of Adam, the first man who also represents the whole human race that was nearly wiped out as a result.

  As said, it could also be the skull of the god Osiris – the two young men being his son Horus and his brother Set who went to war with each other after the death of Osiris and as illustrated in the story of Cain and Abel.

  Again, its been suggested that Atum-Ra represents the 'ecliptic centre' - the centre to which the earth’s pole was perhaps once vertically aligned or believed should be. So in this case, the skull also symbolises the earth, which had become tilted which is why it is inclined by 23.5 degrees. The skull is making a reference to the great ‘father god’ of both Osiris and Set – Atum-Ra – or Atum-Re, in that as a result of the tilt of the earth’s axis, the earth and man had become separated from the “Heavenly Father”.

 

In any case, symbolically, this painting is saying that from this point on, man became trapped within ‘time’ and the cycles of opposites – as expressed in the ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ extremes of the seasons. And if so, whatever had caused the “fall” into what was the first ‘winter’ and therefore the seasons, was seen as something “evil” which would apply to the god Set.

  Set not only represents the SETting Sun in the daily cycle and where the Sun was believed to enter the Underworld, but he also represents Winter in the annual cycle and when the sun is low in the sky (like a serpent close to the ground) and daylight is short.

  Horus not only represents the rising sun in the daily cycle but he also represents Summer when the sun is high in the sky (like an ascended hawk) and daylight is long. So, like the opposites of ‘day’ and ‘night’, the seasons also reflect the age-old struggle between “good” and “evil” which was also seen to be a consequence of this “fall”.

  I would suggest that the reader look closely at the painting with the above in mind, as it most certainly contains a superfluity of meanings associated with the opposites. But my favourite personal interpretation of this painting – and one that clinches it for me is this, and it is really very simple . . .

 

Guercino's Painting Explained

We are told in the history and science books that over 2,000 years ago great thinkers like Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276–194 BCE) and Abu Abdullah Al-Battani of Harran, (868–929 AD) had managed to calculate the tilt of the earth by using a simple stick.

  They would place a stick vertically in the ground on a level surface and then measure the length of the shadow.

  They understood that the changing angles of the sun’s rays and at different times of the year should result in different length shadows if the same stick is measured at specific times – i.e., always at noon and especially during the solstices and the equinoxes.

  The stick would measure a very short shadow during the Summer Solstice (caused by the sun being high in the sky) and a long shadow during the Winter Solstice (caused by the sun being low in the sky.) They then used simple trigonometry to determine the angular variation of the sun and found that the angular height varies around 23.5 degrees – or whatever the obliquity (tilt) of the earth’s axis was at that time between either the equinoxes and the solstices.

  With good reason I shall quote Dr. Carl Weiland, who also informs us of this ancient method.

 

‘Measuring the lengths of the shortest and longest shadows was very important to these ancient astronomers, as their religious feasts were tied to these two special days. If you got the measurements wrong, your head would probably roll! So these results were carefully recorded on stone and papyrus. Many of the measurements taken over the past 3000 years from places such as China, Europe, England, India and Egypt are available to us today. The length of the shadow really depends on the tilt of the earth’.  

Wieland. Dr., Carl, An Asteroid Tilts the Earth. Ex Nihilo, January 1983, pp. 12-14.

Or rather that the changing length of the shadow in one place at different times of the year,depends on the tilt of the earth, because if the earth were upright there would be no change – or maybe only a very slight change depending on the change in the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun – i.e., how far or how near the earth is to the sun.

  But now, because the axis is tilted by 23.5 degrees, in summer and on the longest day, (summer solstice) the shadow of the stick is short, and in winter on the shortest day (winter solstice) the shadow is long.

  Now look again at the above painting. The individual in red represents the male principle and therefore he would represent the summer half of the cycle.

  The individual in white represents the feminine principle and therefore the winter half of the cycle.

  BUT LOOK AT THE ‘SHOWN’ LENGTHS OF THE STAFFS THEY ARE HOLDING!

 

The stick or staff that the individual in red is holding is mostly hidden and it indeed looks as if he is holding a short stick – perhaps indicating the shorter shadow of the stick during summer.

  The stick held by the individual in white is very long in length, indicating the long shadow of the stick during winter.

  When viewing this painting for the first time, the eyes are naturally drawn to these two different sized staffs, and one has the distinct feeling that they must mean something. Well they do mean something, in that we are being told that the earth’s axis had suddenly tilted giving us this difference. And of course this would be the only way a stick would show two different-sized shadows during the summer and winter solstices.

  If we are in any doubt about this, then all we have to do is look again at the skull which the shepherds are both looking at, which like the earth is tilted at 23.5º – possible meaning the death of those who perished during the catastrophe that nearly wiped out the human race. We are also looking at a symbolic divide here and an 'imbalance' – meaning that man is now trapped in cycles that swing between positive and negative and in the extreme. As we will see, we are being told that this divide is due to Man’s own unconsciousness – his unconsciousness of these cyclical processes that govern his life and have him trapped like a fly in a web.

 

I would say that the above is the true interpretation and that at last the mystery of this painting has now been solved. In solving this we solve many others that contain the same information, and yet there is more that we can add to this painting in terms of symbology. I would emphasise that we are dealing with a really clever code which is multifaceted and multilayered and conveys several themes at once.

 

 

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