Ian Hamilton Finlay

Et in Arcadia Ego

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About this artwork

This carved stone sculpture refers to a famous painting of the same name by the seventeenth-century French painter Nicolas Poussin, which shows a group of shepherds looking at an inscription on a tomb in a pastoral setting. The title is a memento mori in Latin which can be translated as ‘I am also in Arcadia’, as if spoken by the personification of Death. Just as Poussin hints that even in an idyll death is present, so Finlay uses the image of modern warfare to remind us of the way we invade the world of nature with our weapons. The hills and trees can be found in the Poussin painting and although the tomb has become a tank made of bricks it is nonetheless a powerful symbol of death.

Updated before 2020

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  • artist:
  • title:
    Et in Arcadia Ego
  • date created:
    1976
  • with:
    John Andrew (1933 - 2021) English
  • materials:
    Hopton Wood stone
  • measurements:
    28.10 x 28.00 x 7.60 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased 1976
  • accession number:
    GMA 1583
  • gallery:
  • subject:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Ian Hamilton Finlay

Ian Hamilton Finlay