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NUMU's New Show Ponders Paradise The group exhibit 'Et in Arcadia Ego' ruminates on ideas of utopia. June 8, 2016 By Jeffrey Edalatpour
Underneath a blue sky, three shepherds and a shepherdess gambol across the countryside. They sport richly hued Grecian robes of scarlet, ocean and sunflower. En route to nowhere in particular, they encounter a sarcophagus with an inscription carved into its stone edifice: Et in Arcadia Ego. They look to each other to puzzle through its meaning, "Even in Arcadia, there am I." Arcadia, an idyllic place, formed in the imagination, is never real or reachable, BECOMING ONE: In Agostino Arrivabene's painting, 'Il sogno di Asclepio,' the mythological figure Asclepio, a son of Apollo, merges with the Earth while dreaming.
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except in art. The phrase gives voice to the dead, reminding these carefree souls that even in their particular eden, death is inescapable. But it's also a
message from the painter himself, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665): "Even in this painting, here am I, my brushwork, my palette, my vision, alive on the canvas 351 years after my death." The regenerative power of his painting derives in part from its depiction of the pastoral, but additionally from the visible tension of the living in the presence of the dead. Many artists before and after Poussin have met these ideas squarely, with their paintbrushes in hand. Now, as guest curator, the painter David Molesky has carefully gathered a group of artists—many of them local —conversant with the exhibit title and theme: Et in Arcadia Ego. Apart from the obvious inspiration from Poussin, there's a self-portrait, In Arcadia, by the Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum. He is a spectral figure, a somnambulist, with black pockets of mournful eyes. The painter wanders through a forest glade of lavenders and the deepest of greens. The perspective hovers off-kilter: Nerdrum's feet may not be touching the ground. The trunk or branch of a tree stretches past his right shoulder out into the air. Either he's in limbo, the space between the living and the dead, or this is what Scandinavia is like in the twilight hours. Molesky had access to the painting because he's a former disciple of Nerdrum's. For over two years, he painted on his farms in Norway and Iceland. Molesky described Nerdrum as "a figure ... like that Balzac statue by Rodin. Odd's a very imposing figure with a big, square head and his
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