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This page contains my interpretation of the 1637-1640 Nicolas Poussin "Shepherdess" painting, Les Bergers d'Arcadie (The Shepherds of Arcadia).
The image below shows what I believe to be the secret geometry contained in the painting. I call this the "Grail Star" figure, because I believe it to be associated with the Philosopher's Stone of Alchemy, which was known as the Holy Grail. I also believe that this geometry is a clue to the location of the treasures of the Jerusalem Temple. The exact geometric details of this figure are beyond the scope of this web page but suffice it to say that it is produced through a complex procedure involving hexagonal and pentagonal geometry.
The four characters shown in the painting are, from left to right, Bacchus/Dionysos, the constellation Cepheus, the constellation Bootes and the constellation Virgo. Anyone can find images of the constellation Hercules and see that he is positioned differently from the kneeling shepherd, his chest being toward the viewer rather than his back, his arms positioned differently and his legs being opposite of those shown in the painting (left and right leg positions reversed). In fact, the only similarity between the kneeling shepherd and depictions of Hercules is the fact that both are kneeling and both have beards. Aside from that, they are very different while the depiction of Cepheus shown here is identical except for the right arm position, which had to be changed so that he could point to the inscription. Shown below is an image of Bootes by Johann Bayer from 1603 showing the obvious similarity to the right shepherd and an image of Hercules showing the differences I just mentioned.
The next image shows a depiction of Cepheus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda by Phillipe de La Hire, from 1705. Although this book was published after Poussin painted Les Bergers d'Arcadie, common sense tells us that the depictions of the constellations in that book must have been based on even earlier ones. I haven't found an earlier published source for those depictions but I'm sure they must have appeared on a sky globe somewhere which was accessible to Phillipe de La Hire. If he had simply made a completely unprecedented depiction of Cepheus, I'm sure it would have been commented upon by someone.
Below, the Cepheus image is shown next to a cutout from another Poussin painting, The Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, from a few years after Les Bergers d'Arcadie. The character is clearly identical to the kneeling shepherd but, in this case, he has his right arm in a nearly identical position to that of Cepheus. Here Poussin gives us a clue to the true identity of the kneeling shepherd, showing that he is not Hercules at all, but indeed Cepheus. He also gives us a clue that Les Bergers d'Arcadie is associated with the treasures of the Jerusalem temple, which were looted by the Romans and later taken from the Romans by the Visigoths to France.
The following image shows the group of constellations which I believe to be secretly indicated by Les Bergers d'Arcadie. This image is from a program called Starry Night, a highly accurate astronomy simulator. You will see that the celestial meridian is to the right of Cepheus, just as the vertical line on the tomb, though it is not seen vertically in this image. Its orientation changes as the night progresses but its position relative to the constellations remains at the same angle. The significant thing about the celestial meridian is that it passes through Cassiopeia and a supernova occurred in Cassiopeia very near this meridian in 1572. This was reported by Tycho Brahe and is known as Tycho's Star. You will see that the W/M asterism of Cassiopeia perfectly matches up with the star figures from the painting. This supernova was seen as very significant by the Rosicrucians who perceived it as an omen of the restoration of a "Golden Age" in which their Rosicrucian ideals would pervade the entire world.
As I'm sure you can imagine, for the geometry which perfectly fits the Poussin painting to also perfectly match the Cassiopeia stars by simple chance is extremely unlikely. The significance of these particular constellations is that they depict a king and a queen, Cepheus and Cassiopeia. A king and queen are featured in alchemical allegories which describe the process for producing the Philosopher's Stone. I positioned the top of the double star figure at the upper (or right) end of the W asterism, which seemed like a logical thing to do. I can't guarantee that this is the actual way the original positioning was done but I would say that it is the most likely. There is actually a real double star in Cassiopeia, Eta Cassiopeia, which may be what the double star figure represents. Of course, it probably also represents a number of possible couples such as Isis/Horus, Jesus/Mary Magdalene, Ishtar/Tammuz etc. At this time there is no way to positively nail down exactly what the two stars were originally intended to represent, but the evidence indicating that the figure really did exist centuries ago and was secretly incorporated into a number of art works at that time is quite extensive. Simply being able to place the exact same figure into Les Bergers d'Arcadie and the Cassiopeia W asterism is astonishing, much less all the other places I been able to equally precisely place the same figure.
Below is an image showing that Poussin used two characters from the title page of Tycho Brahe's autobiography as the basis for two of the characters in his first Arcadian Shepherds painting. He merely changed the sky globe to a water jar. Since Tycho Brahe was best known for reporting the Cassiopeia supernova and was also an alchemist, this is very supportive of my theory that Poussin really did use the geometry which I have shown to perfectly match the stars of the Cassiopeia W/M asterism. I discovered the geometry in the Poussin painting years before I discovered that it also matched the Cassiopeia stars, so this is not a case of my purposely designing a geometric figure to match those stars and then placing it over the painting. You can see that for this interrelationship to occur by simple chance would be practically impossible. To show just how closely the double star figure matches those stars, the precise angle in the figure is 79.8905083 and the precise angle between the stars was 79.6886277 in 1572, when the geometry was probably designed by the Rosicrucians to match those stars. The difference is only about 1/5th of a degree, too small to even be detected by the human eye. How do I know the precise angles? I know the precise angle in the figure because I deduced the method by which it was geometrically produced and that is the resulting angle. I know the angle between the Cassiopeia star because the program Starry Night provides the "angular separations" between any two stars at any point in time, with which the angle between the three stars involved could be calculated. That angle changes only very slightly over many centuries. Interestingly enough, it would have been closer to the exact angle of the double star figure in the time of Jesus, though I'm sure this really is a coincidence. I just wanted to let you know how little the angle between the stars changes over time.
The below image shows the Poussin Grail Star figure applied to a map of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The extended centerlines of the two stars intersect at the previously unexplained treasure pit on Oak Island. After that is an image showing the painting overlaid onto the first image showing how the kneeling shepherd seems to be positioned in the area of the central island (maybe coincidence, nonetheless interesting) and how the trees actually lean in the direction of Oak Island.
The next image shows the Grail Star figure contained in a print from the 1618 Rosicrucian publication Mirror of the Wisdom of the Rosicrucians. The print also contains the exact same cross shaped geometry as is laid out on the ground on Oak Island with several ten-ton conical granite boulders. This is known as the Oak Island Cross and is 867 feet from bottom to top. Though I say bottom to top, it is actually laid out flat on the ground.
So here we have yet further factors which would have to be attributed to coincidence in order for my theory to be considered implausible. I don't think any reasonable and intelligent person could accept such an interlinked series of simple and extremely precise coincidences. The geometry was drawn with a high precision "autoCAD" program and is absolutely identical in all of the images in which I placed it. Below that image is one showing how Cygnus (the swan) is just left of Cepheus but to the right of Hercules. This proves that the kneeling shepherd cannot possibly be Hercules if the left shepherd is Cygnus, as he can only be since he is Bacchus/Dionysos who is associated with a cross and can in no way be connected to any other constellation. Note that Cygnus is positioned at the exact same angle as the cross in the Rosicrucian print when the center of the M/W asterism is on the North meridian and Cassiopeia is in the center of the sky.the date used in the Starry Night program is not the only time when that configuration occurs. It works the same regardless of the date, but this center of sky position is only as seen from Western Europe. When viewed from North America the constellations are a little East of center but, of course, no matter where you view them from, Cepheus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda are pointed to by the top of the Northern Cross/Cygnus. Incidentally, there is an interesting connection between this asterism and the mysterious church in Rennes-le-Chateau. The statues of the saints in that church are arranged in such a way that you can connect up the five saints whose first names start with the letters that spell out the word GRAAL, French for Grail, and the connecting lines will produce an M shape.
As proof of Poussin's connections with Rosicrucianism, here are two quotes from the 1618 Rosicrucian text mentioned previously. They indicate the importance of Thomas A. Kempis to the Rosicrucians.
"From my heart I speak: go into thyself, put all worldly things behind thee, contemplate the two old theological works of Thomas a Kempis of 150 years ago, follow after them, in them thou hast the whole art so worthily and beautifully that they are worth setting in silver, gold and precious stones, and guarded as thy highest treasure."
and
"More I cannot say unto thee of this, but if thou desirest more information concerning this fundament and preparatory work, thou shalt find more thereon in the aforementioned little books of Thomas a Kempis, for the author in the same book does nothing else but teach thee to practise this work rightly and well, and so it may be called his golden writing, well and truly a fount and origin of the Rhodo-staurotic teaching."
Now here are two images, one showing a 1569 painting of Thomas Kempis and the other showing a self portrait of Nicolas Poussin. Note that Poussin purposely positioned his head to imitate the character in the lower left of the Kempis painting. This is not a natural or comfortable head position so why would he use it without a very good reason?
This shows how Kempis was positioned to mimic Cassiopeia's leg position. So we have both Poussin and Teniers giving us clues to the Kempis painting and then the Kempis painting giving us a clue to Cassiopeia. Then with the characters in Les Bergers d'Arcadie corresponding to the very constellations surrounding Cassiopeia and the concealed geometry of both the Poussin and the Teniers painting perfectly matching the stars of Cassiopeia, there is really no way around the fact that this is the true solution to the paintings.
Now, here is yet another instance of this leg positioning being incorporated into a painting. This is a painting by Poussin's understudy, Charles le Brun (1635), of St. Genevieve. She is/was the patron saint of Paris, which is where Poussin was based for a time. In this case, we can see that her legs are very similar to St. Antony's in the Teniers painting and the image below shows a comparison with an image of Cybele/Rhea (pagan goddess). Although reversed, you can see that the position of the two arms are virtually identical. It's easy to see how Cassiopeia could have been associated with this goddess. Rhea was important to groups such as the Freemasons, who use a depiction of her standing by a broken pillar with Cronus/Time comforting her. The Rosicrucians claim a heritage going back to Egypt, just like the Masons, and it is quite likely that they would have revered Rhea/Cybele in a similar manner. This may explain their interest in the constellation Cassiopeia.
Here are some images proving that the left shepherd is, indeed, Bacchus. the first is a 1630 Poussin painting called Midas and Bacchus, obviously showing the same two characters as later used in Les Bergers d'Arcadie. How does Midas connect with Cepheus? He was a mortal king from Greek mythology, just like Cepheus. Why does he point to the inscription Et In Arcadia Ego? There was another Cepheus in Greek mythology and he indeed lived in Arcadia. Thus, King Cepheus is telling us that he also has a counterpart in Arcadia. This works perfectly with the "and" part of the inscription.
The next image shows the sarcophagus of Constantina, Constantine's daughter. Note the similar shape as the tomb in Les Bergers. This sarcophagus was also believed to be the "tomb of Bacchus", for whatever reason. It was kept in a Mausoleum of Santa Constanza in Rome, where Poussin was based for most of his career. Poussin certainly would have seen this sarcophagus and clearly used it as the model for the one in his painting.
Below are some links to images from Julius Schiller's 1627 book Coelum Stellatum Christianum. This was a collection of Christianized versions of the major constellations. You will see that there appears to be a connection with these images and the significant paintings by Poussin and Teniers. The Poussin connection is with the constellation image entitled The Holy Sepulchre, which shows a tomb with a crack and with a cloth draped over it, both features also being seen in Les Bergers d'Arcadie. This is the Christianized version of Andromeda. Above the sepulchre is a constellation called, interestingly enough, Mary Magdalene, which is the Christianized version of none other than Cassiopeia.
The Teniers connection is mainly with the constellation called Saint Paul, which is normally Perseus. Teniers' St. Paul is remarkably similar to this constellation image. Another connection is the depiction of Crater and Corvus, the bowl and crow, in the Teniers painting. The Christianized version of these two constellations is the Ark of the Covenant. What this is meant to tell us open to speculation but I can't imagine why else Corvus and Crater would have been shown in the painting other than as a reference to this Schiller constellation, especially since Teniers obviously was aware of the book and actually used the Schiller St. Paul depiction in the same painting.
Tomb
Mary Magdalene
St. Paul
Corvus and Crater
Copyright © Brian Ettinger 2007 All Rights Reserved
Painting les Bergers d'Arcadie by Nicolas Poussin,
© Louvre Museum
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