Finally, I've selected three components for my photographic illustration, Et in Arcadia Ego, individual images from which appeared here earlier.
Thematically, I've always been drawn to variations of memento mori, especially in the Baroque era, whether in the form of vanitas still-life paintings or Et in Arcadia Ego landscapes. After all, they stand as a reminder of life's brevity and mutability, Nature's cycles, the highest and the lowest points on the Wheel of Fortune.
That said, I've never particularly liked Nicholas Poussin's most obvious exemplar, which depicts shepherds finding a tomb, i.e., evidence of Death, even in a place like Arcadia, a kind of an earthly paradise.
Yet, despite the radically different approach I've selected for my take on this subject, there are some parallels.
I've shot these images in the Rocky Mountains, their pristine northern landscapes and small towns--not unlike the Hellenic Arcadia. Indeed, it is because I'm underscoring an analogy between the two that I've chosen to use animal bones found here in the wild rather than something akin to a tomb.
The Classical sculptures are reminiscent of Poussin's shepherds of Antiquity. The latter being inanimate create a different kind of contrast to the bones, non-living versus the dead, visually emphasized through the usage of a shallow depth of field and consequent blurring of the former.
I welcome feedback from those with an interest in similar subjects and/or aesthetics.
