Arcadia Discussion Zone

Hopefully it's still okay to float ideas on this Forum, without getting shot down in flames for it, so for what it's worth, here's a thought.

Reading "The Rise", one of the most interesting things I've come across so far is the discussion about the tomb of Abdon and Sennen in Arles-Sur-Tech, and the way in which it miraculously fills up with water. Running water does seem to be an important theme, generally. Anyway, while writing about this, the "Rise" authors speculate (on p.53) - and to be fair, it's a casual speculation, they don't try to take it too far - that the water being poured from the tomb in the first of Poussin's Arcadian Shepherd paintings could be an allusion to this tomb in Arles. We all know it well, but for ease of reference, here is said painting:



I don't know if this idea gets referred to again later in the text as I'm still working my way through it (it's a dense read, and I'm a slow reader, I'm afraid), but what I have read about this did make me think about the second of the two paintings on this theme; the more famous one:



We've discussed this here before, in a different context, but if you look at the foot of this tomb, close to where the shepherd has his foot on a rock, it does appear that water once flowed from this tomb too, but does no longer. It does look like there is a little channel in the earth, that this might have once been a water course.

So one tomb has water coming from it, but by the other tomb, the water has dried up. Is there perhaps some meaning to this?

Like I said, just a thought.

Looking at the first Picture we have three representations of fluid/liquid.
1.)The Old Man River(forget the name of the legend),
2.)The jar of liquid,
3.)The Canal itself but we are obscured to it's source.

We know that Poussin is not repeating a theme because he likes the sound of his own airbrush. Just amusing myself.
We know fresh water is important,
We know salt/mineralised/alkaline water is important,
I proffer up the third as maybe being acidic.

As to the second picture, it indicates it not longer runs, assuming it did in the first place.

So we might suspect that both the first and second picture together are indicative of an operation have taken place.

Not to shoot down your theory in flames, Richard (I don't do that when the theory in question has to do with symbolism because as I think we will often find and has been correctly stated, symbols can have multiple meanings), but let me just point out there might be another way of looking at the water flowing from the tomb in the painting.

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/ps ... rgod2.html

Poussin's first Et in Arcadia Ego painting, c. 1629-30, includes a figure identified by some commentators as the river god Alpheus in the lower right. The main action of the canvas features rustics contemplating a tomb whose writing tells them `et in Arcadia ego,' that death too (as well as beauty) lives in Arcadia. Peripheral to the main action, in the lower right corner of the picture, his back to the viewer, Alpheus waits and watches water spill from his urn:

Alpheus' strong, naked back makes him seem allied with nature, not culture, and the flowing water seems to suggest the continuity and transcience; the flowing of time far beyond the brief span that will be occupied by the rustics' presence in this scene, or even in their lifetimes in Arcadia. The god is at home on this spot, he isn't going anywhere; he and his urn were there before this scene occured and will be there after its little drama is played out.

Alpheus is the appropriate river god to have grace this scene because he is associated with love and thus with Arcadia. Ovid's Metamorphoses tells his story. He pursued a beautiful young woman, Arethusa, who swam in his waters. She appealed to Artemis, goddess of the hunt, to escape him and was transformed also into water. But to aid her escape Artemis split the earth underground between Greece and Sicily, allowing Arethusa to flow through this hidden passage and emerge as a spring in Sicily, the source of some of the purest and most sought-after waters on the island, a spot now sacred to Artemis and named after Arethusa. But Alpheus followed, intermingling his waters with hers, and legend has it that a wooden cup dropped in the river Alpheus in Greece can re-emerge in Sicily. (Cf. Edith Hamilton's Mythology.)

An irony is in the story that Hamilton does not mention: Artemis the goddess of chastity protected Arethusa in one way but in another way she did not; the means of escape she provided also became the means by which the Greek river god could unite with the woman even more fully and more permanently than she feared.

This story is not known before Ovid's famous account of it in the Metamorphosis. It's not clear whether it has Greek sources or not, unlike many of Ovid's other stories in the Metamorphosis, which clearly do have been passed down to him from Greek tradition. But this apparently precendent-less story is one of the ones that most overtly seems to represent the cultural connections between Greek and Roman culture as the Romans understood them: a deep and powerful intermingling contributes to the "purity" of the Italian spring. The story also suggests that some of the most powerful connections are not the obvious ones but the ones hidden underground.)

For Poussin in Et in Arcadia Ego, the presence of the river god Alpheus signifies the flowing and vivifying presence of the arcadian tradition in Greece and Rome (and also in Poussin's time). But he also stands for a kind of eternity in marked contrast to the mortals and lovers who try to read the writing on the tomb.

[snip]

Not at all, and thank you for your interest, and for taking the time to respond; thanks to Rain, as well. I guess for clarity, I should say that the speculation about the earlier Poussin painting being an allusion to the tomb at Arles-Sur-Tech came from the authors of "The Rise", and not from me, but I thought it was an interesting idea. I understand the more general point about an underground stream being referenced in the painting, though as you say, symbols can have multiple meanings, so perhaps more than one thing is being alluded to here.

My idea, such as it was, was whether or not the absence of water in the second painting - and it does seem possible that what appears to be a dried up rivulet emanating from the tomb might be a deliberate reference to such an absence - was perhaps something that should be considered afresh. Of course, one would not need there to be a specific allusion to the Arles tomb for such a comparison to be valid - it may be simply the underground stream that is being referenced in both instances. Or not.

C'est fait expres, non? C'est une blague...

As I see it Richard the water is still there and still flowing. They are the warm waters that bathe the remains of the beloved...like the waters at Arles sur Tech guarded over by La Sanch....to name but one instance and the sacred burials on the zero meridian at RLB as another...and the sacred remains in the Necropolis that shall not be named.

Water...particularly salty mineral water...everywhere.

Salt water/Natron water as depicted by Teniers as well remember. Best place to my mind to keep fresh corpses of loved ones immersed in.

Il faut savoir faire la part des choses... Poussin et Herculaneum, ce n'est sans doute pas du tout une blague. Que les pretres Audois en sachent quoi que ce soit, c'est tres certainement une connerie.

Okeydoke, I'll give it another go then.
I wondered whether you were outsnipping the snipper for a moment (sorry Steve).

Thought you might like Richard and Seeker1.

DALI “Necrophilic Fountain Flowing from a Grand Piano”

I do like it, Rain! Thank you.

I'm afraid I lost track of the thread when it switched from English to French. Never mind.

That Dali painting must have come from the Virtual Dali site, which is a really good on-line catalogue of his work. Here's the link.

http://www.virtualdali.com/index.html

Thanks.

Richard,

A kind of update -- i was interested in certain research leads suggested by Doumergue .... and by chance came upon a theory about who Abdon and Sennen were, quite by chance.....

I think it is fair to say that nothing is known historically of these two 'saints' .... i guess only that they were martyrs? I quote good old wikpedia which say 'Because of this lack of knowledge about them,{ie Abdon and Sennen} they are no longer listed in the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints to be commemorated liturgically worldwide'

The theory, which i am researching, suggests the hagiographies of the later interpolated saints might be based on two historical people, or an assertion, that these two lived during the first century. If true, where does that leave the theory expounded in the Rise? This 'historical' Abdon and Sennen would seem to have no link to Manicheanism or anything of that kind, but their proper historical context is interesting (if this new theory is correct).

No link to running water, or a tomb at Arles etc. No link to Poussin.

It will take some follow up ...but it is interesting nevertheless....

I may need to read The Rise again, to ascertain and remind myself what the authors say again .....

There is no link to Poussin...other than, other than the water that bathes the remains in the tomb.

other than, other than the water that bathes the remains in the tomb.

What i mean to say is that if the 'historical' Abdon and Sennen have nothing to do with two third century 'saints' reckoned to have been martyred under Decius (i think it was this Emperor), then i suppose it (and they) have nothing to do with a tomb in Arles, running water and what not, and Manicheanism etc etc, and all the rest of it connected to the theory in the Rise. Those myths have been added?

The funny thing is they are also linked to a Tobias .. but not the Book of Tobit.

I need to re-read the book The Rise, because i cant remember what the authors wrote now.

However, what the historical Abdon and Sennen have to do with is relics associated with the Crucifixion in a very obscure way. Anyway ... its very interesting (to me anyway) ...

If IBJ is correct about Sauniere wanting to have these saints and the shrine at Arles recognised .....there may be other reasons why this was important to him other than the speculation in The Rise?

Its a bit like our previous conversations about saints (eg Saint Denis) not being the actual saint we are interested in, because his story has been appropriated and built upon, to obscure other events or actions?? Abdon and Sennen (3rd century) appear to have been approriated from two earlier historical characters, and they were later mixed up with other stories ...

Anyway .... I will present the case when i have thought it through more, and constructed valid arguments ....

Does anybody know of the child(Abdon) that Sauniere was said to have raised as his own? I can`t seem to find any info on this story,other than he was healed by the waters from the tomb and raised by Sauniere.

ah...the child of Marie Denarnaud's foster sister....and the miraculous cure from the water of the tomb...is this just an urban myth?...


Isaac ben Jacob

There you go then...if it's factual...it's a subject worth looking into...but did BS have ulterior motives other than the education of the child?

I`m sure Sauniere took the boy there and did whatever it is one does to make the miracle happen.but was it really the water that cured him.I personally don`t believe this magic water business.



Sounds about right to me Sheila.

But what I wondered is why Sauniere was said to have raised the boy,if I`m not mistaken didn`t the mother and father live near the village.Maybe it was bad wording on the people who wrote of this,but they make it sound like the parents dumped the boy off and Sauniere took him in as an orphan.

It's not magic water per se...it's water that is washing over the remains of the bodies...it is the dead bodies that are important and the memory that the water holds!

Right,the water is not magic nor are the Holy bones inside.It just fits..water passes through the sarcophagus that contains the holy bones of 2 saints,so of course it would have "magic" healing abilities from touching the holy bones.yes your right the bodies are the important part it would seem,important enough to keep them in a water logged sarcophagus instead of a nice dry fancy display case in a church.but then that would ruin the attraction,i guess.