Form and Content in Western Art
Content - Page 2 of 16



What is meant by content? One way to understand the term content is to compare it to the term subject:

  • Content is the meaning conveyed by a work of art.
  • Subject is what a work depicts. It is the story, event or scene represented.
  • Content requires an interpretation of what is represented.
  • The subject of a painting calls for a description of what a work represents.

Nicolas Poussin
"Et in Arcadia Ego"
The subject of the painting is the examination by three shepherds of an inscription found on a hillside tomb. The title of the painting, "Et in Arcadia Ego," is the Latin phrase inscribed on the stone block. (Although you can't make out the inscription in the digitized image, it is visible in the actual painting.) The inscription translates as: "I, too, am in Arcadia." Arcadia was a mythical place that existed before civilization (hence the beautiful landscape with almost no manmade structures), where people enjoyed a peaceful, pastoral (hence the shepherds) existence, without a formal system of government and without hunger. The woman standing to the right of the group of shepherds in the painting is difficult to identify. She is clothes in Greco-Roman classical robes and is depicted as very thoughtful. Because of her serious mood, she adds a note of sadness to the painting. Some scholars think she represents (personifies) the presence of Death in this ideally peaceful place, thus adding significantly to the content or meaning of the painting.