Alfeis (Greek: , also romanized as Alpheus, Alpheios) is the longest river in the

Peloponnese, in Greece. The river is 110 km long, flowing through the regional units of Arcadia
and Elis. Its source is near the village Dorizas, about halfway between Tripoli and Megalopoli in
the highlands of Arcadia. It flows southwest toward Megalopoli, where it has been diverted around
open pit lignite mines. At Thoknia it receives its right tributary Elissonas, and continues north
towards Karytaina. Below Karytaina the Lousios flows into the Alfeios, and the Alfeios continues
northwest, passing north of Andritsaina. Near Tripotamia the rivers Ladon and Erymanthos flow
into the Alfeios. The Alfeios then flows west along Olympia and empties into the Ionian Sea south
of Pyrgos.
The ancient highway linking Patras and Kalamata ran along this river for most of the length east
of Olympia.
In Greek mythology, the Peneus and Alpheus were two rivers re-routed by Heracles in his fifth
labour in order to clean the filth from the Augean Stables in a single day, a task which had been
presumed to be impossible. A poem by Roger Caillois, called Le fleuve Alphe (the Alpheus
River), is mainly about this river.
In the Aeneid, Virgil describes the Alpheus as flowing under the sea to resurface at Ortygia on
Sicily, or "so runs the tale".[1]
"Underground river" in Western esotericism[edit]
According to the The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail [1982], 15th-century French king Ren of
Anjou, who contributed to the formation of the Western esoteric tradition, used the theme of an
"underground river" that was equated with the Alfeios River to represent a subculture of Arcadian
esotericism, which was seen as an alternative to the mainstream spiritual and religious traditions
of Christendom. The book claims that the myth of Arcadia and its underground river became a
prominent cultural fashion and inspired various artistic works such as Jerusalem Delivered (1581)
by Torquato Tasso, Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1590) by Philip Sidney, Les Bergers
dArcadie (1637 1638) by Nicolas Poussin and the Kubla Khan (1816) by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. The book speculates that the "underground stream" might also have connoted an
unacknowledged and thus "subterranean" bloodline of Jesus.[2]
Nicolas Poussin (French: [nikl pus]; 15 June 1594 19 November 1665) was the leading
painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome.
His work is characterized by clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. Until the 20th
century he remained a major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis
David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Czanne.
He worked in Rome for a circle of leading collectors there and elsewhere, except for a short
period when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France to serve as First Painter to the King.
Most of his works are history paintings of religious or mythological subjects that very often have a
large landscape element.
Nicolas Poussin's early biographer was his friend Giovanni Pietro Bellori,[1] who relates that
Poussin was born near Les Andelys in Normandy and that he received an education that included
some Latin, which would stand him in good stead. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin
Varin, a local painter, whose pupil Poussin became, until he ran away to Paris at the age of
eighteen. There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges
Lallemand, both minor masters now remembered for having tutored Poussin. He found French art
in a stage of transition: the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training
destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet; but having met Alexandre
Courtois the mathematician, Poussin was fired by the study of his collection of engravings by

Marcantonio Raimondi after Italian masters.

After two abortive attempts to reach Rome, he fell in with Giambattista Marino, the court poet to
Marie de Medici, at Lyon. Marino employed him on illustrations to his poem Adone (untraced) and
on a series of illustrations for a projected edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses,[2] took him into his
household, and in 1624 enabled Poussin (who had been detained by commissions in Lyon and
Paris) to rejoin him at Rome. It has been suggested that it was this early friendship with Marino,
and the commissioning of illustrations of his poetry (which drew on Ovidian themes), that
founded, or at least reinforced, the prominent eroticism in Poussin's early work.[3]
In Rome[edit]
Poussin's Death of Germanicus, 1628
Poussin was thirty when he arrived in Rome in 1624. At first he lodged with Simon Vouet.[4]
Through Marino, he had been introduced to Marcello Sacchetti who in turn introduced him to
another of his early patrons, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Financial difficulties arose with the
departure to Spain of Barberini, accompanied by Cassiano dal Pozzo, the antiquarian and the
Cardinal's secretary, who later would become a great friend and patron. However, their return
from Spain in 1626 stabilized Poussins position, with renewed patronage by the Barberini and
their circle. Two major commissions at this period resulted in Poussin's early masterwork, the
Barberini Death of Germanicus (1628), partly inspired by the reliefs of the Meleager sarcophagus,
[5] and the commission for St. Peter's that amounted to a public debut, the Martyrdom of St.
Erasmus (1629, Vatican Pinacoteca), indebted to designs on the same subject by the
contemporary Baroque painter, Pietro da Cortona.[6] He fell ill at this time and was taken into the
house of his compatriot Jacques Dughet, where he was nursed by Dughets daughter, Anna
Maria, who Poussin married in 1630. His two brothers-in-law were artists and Gaspard Dughet
later took Poussins surname.[7]
Poussin's Tancred and Erminia (early 1630s, oil on canvas, 98.5 x 146.5 cm, Hermitage Museum)
shows an evolution from Poussin's early emulation of Caravaggio to a return to classicism.
Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons (c. 1635)
During the late 1620s and 1630s, he had the opportunity to experiment and formulate his own
stance in painting with reference to others. Toward this end he studied the Antique as well as
works such as Titians Bacchanals (The Bacchanal of the Andrians, Bacchus and Ariadne, and
The Worship of Venus) at the Casino Ludovisi and the paintings of Domenichino and Guido Reni.
[8] At the same time, the Roman Baroque was emerging: in the 1620s Cortona was producing his
early Baroque paintings for the Sacchetti family; Bernini, having established his reputation in
sculpture, was designing the great bronze baldachin in St. Peters; and an ingenious architectural
imagination was emerging in works by Borromini.
Poussin became acquainted with other artists in Rome and tended to befriend those with
classicizing artistic leanings: the French sculptor Franois Duquesnoy whom he lodged with in
1626; the French artist Jacques Stella; Claude Lorraine; Domenichino; Andrea Sacchi; and joined
an informal academy of artists and patrons opposed to the current Baroque style that formed
around Joachim von Sandrart.
At the time the papacy was Romes foremost patron of the arts. Poussins Martyrdom of St.
Erasmus for St. Peters was Poussins only papal commission, secured for him by Cardinal
Barberini, the papal nephew, and Poussin was not asked again to contribute major altarpieces or
paint large scale decorations for a pope.[9] His subsequent career depended on private
patronage. Apart from Cardinal Francesco Barberini, his first patrons included Cardinal Luigi
Omodei, for whom he produced the Triumphs of Flora (c 163032, Louvre); Cardinal de
Richelieu, who commissioned various Bacchanals; Vincenzo Giustiniani, for whom he painted the
Massacre of the Innocents (uncertain early date, Muse Cond, Chantilly);[10] Cassiano dal

Pozzo who became the owner of the first series of the Seven Sacraments (late 1630s, Belvoir
Castle); and Paul Frart de Chantelou, with whom Poussin, at the call of Sublet de Noyers,
returned to France in 1640.
In France[edit]
Louis XIII conferred on him the title of First Painter in Ordinary. In two years at Paris he produced
several pictures for the royal chapels (the Last Supper, painted for Versailles, now in the Louvre),
eight cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry manufactory, the series of the Labors of Hercules for the
Louvre, the Triumph of Truth for Cardinal Richelieu (Louvre), and much minor work.
In 1642, disgusted by the intrigues of Simon Vouet, Fouquires and the architect Jacques
Lemercier, Poussin withdrew to Rome. There, in 1648, he finished for de Chantelou the second
series of the Seven Sacraments (Bridgewater Gallery), and also his noble Landscape with
Diogenes (Louvre). This painting shows the philosopher discarding his last worldly possession,
his cup, after watching a man drink water by cupping his hands.[11] In 1649 he painted the Vision
of St Paul (Louvre) for the comic poet Paul Scarron, and in 1651 the Holy Family (Louvre) for the
duc de Crquy. Year by year he continued to produce an enormous variety of works, many of
which are included in the list given by Flibien.
He suffered from declining health after 1650, and was troubled by a worsening tremor in his hand,
evidence of which is apparent in his late drawings.[12] He died in Rome on 19 November 1665
and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, his wife having predeceased him.
Chateaubriand in 1820 donated the monument to Poussin.
Poussin left no children, but he adopted as his son Gaspard Dughet (Gasparo Duche), his wife's
brother, who became a painter and took the name of Poussin.
Works[edit]
Et in Arcadia ego (Les Bergers dArcadie), late 1630s, oil on canvas, 85 x 121 cm, Louvre
The Inspiration of the Poet (detail women left) - c. 1630
Throughout his life Poussin stood apart from the popular tendency toward the decorative in
French art of his time. In Poussin's works a survival of the impulses of the Renaissance is
coupled with conscious reference to the art of classical antiquity as the standard of excellence.
His goal was clarity of expression achieved by disegno or nobility of design in preference to
colore or color.[13] Perhaps his concern with disegno can best be seen in the line engraved
copies of his works; among the many who reproduced his paintings, some of the most successful
are Audran, Claudine Stella, Picart and Pesne.
Themes of tragedy and death are prevalent in Poussin's work.[14] Et in Arcadia ego, a subject he
painted twice (second version is seen at right), exemplifies his cerebral approach. In this
composition, idealized shepherds examine a tomb inscribed with the title phrase, which is usually
interpreted as a memento mori: "Even in Arcadia I exist", as if spoken by personified Death.
According to art historian Christopher Wright, Poussin intended his figures to "display the most
distilled and most typical attitude and emotion for the role they were playing", but he was
concerned with emotion "in a generalized and not specific way ... Thus in both compositions of Et
in Arcadia Ego (Chatsworth and Louvre) the theme is the realization of death in life. The specific
models hardly matter. We are not intended to have sympathy with them and instead we are
forced by the artist to think on the theme."[14]
Poussin is an important figure in the development of landscape painting. In his early paintings the
landscape usually forms a graceful background for a group of figures; later he progressed to the
painting of landscape for its own sake, although the figure is never entirely absent. Examples are
Landscape with St. John on Patmos (1640), (Art Institute of Chicago) and Landscape with a
Roman Road (1648), (Dulwich Picture Gallery).[15]

The finest collection of Poussin's paintings is at the Louvre in Paris. Other significant collections
are in the National Gallery in London; the National Gallery of Scotland; the Dulwich Picture
Gallery; the Muse Cond, Chantilly; the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; and the Museo del
Prado, Madrid.
Poussin was a prolific artist. Among his many works are: