Dance to the Music of Time

Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time is universally recognized as a masterpiece amongst art historians. Like so many of Poussin's paintings, it is based on a complex iconographic program that was crystal-clear to the work's 17th century patron, but which remains obscure for the contemporary viewer. Fortunately, Poussin's early biographers as well as subsequent art historians have tackled the difficult task of deciphering Poussin's work.

Today it is widely accepted that Dance to the Music of Time was meant to represent the passing of time, and the different stages of life on the rapidly revolving wheel of fortune: poverty, labor, wealth, and pleasure. Poverty is the male figure at the very back of the circle, with his back turned towards the viewer. He dances barefoot, in keeping with his humble status, and looks longingly towards Labor, his dancing partner on the right. Labor, a muscular young woman also dancing barefoot whose bare shoulders and covered hair indicate her hard work, eagerly twists to grasp Wealth's hand. Wealth, dancing in golden sandels and robes, disdainfully takes Labor's hand and gazes outward with haughty self-propriety. Finally, Pleasure gazes knowingly at the viewer with a sly smirk, her flushed face and bare, round shoulder evoking Poussin's early erotic paintings.

In short, this little dance is meant to represent the Wheel of Fortune: if a poor man works hard, he can gain wealth. Once wealthy, he can lead a life of pleasure, but pleasure enjoyed in excess can lead him right back into poverty.

Other details in the painting reinforce the theme of cyclical or passing time. The elderly, bearded man on the right hand side is easily identifiable as Father Time, although instead of his traditional scythe, he wields Orpheus's lyre. At his feet is a small putto with an hour glass, a symbol too obvious to need an explanation. To the left of the picture plane sits another small putto blowing bubbles. In ancient art, blowing bubbles wasn't just an innocent pastime: bubbles represented the fragility of man.

Meanwhile, Apollo rides his chariot through the heavens above, symbolizing the passing of the days (in ancient Greek mythology, Apollo's chariot was a symbol for the rising sun).

The Commission:
Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time was commissioned by Giulio Rospigliosi, the future Pope Clement IX, an important patron for Poussin during his early years in Rome who also commissioned Poussin's most famous masterpiece, The Arcadian Shepherds.

It was Rospigliosi who actually developed the iconographic program for Dance to the Music of Time, and thus many critics have interpreted this painting in light of the future pope's interest in music. Rospiglioso was an accomplished opera librettist during the very incipience of opera as a musical form.

Today, it is generally accepted that Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time represents the cycles of life and the passing of time, as described above. This was not the painting's original theme, however. Apparently, Rospigliosi's original idea was inspired by Boitet de Frauville's Les Dionysiaques, which describes the passing of time and the cycle of the seasons.

According to this story, the god Jupiter (the Roman version of Zeus) gave Bacchus (as well as his drink of choice, wine) to the world in order to compensate for the miserable living conditions mortals must endure after Time and the Seasons complained.

The male dancer with the crown of twigs (now interpreted as the figure of Poverty) was originally intended to represent the god Bacchus as well as the season Autumn, followed by Winter, Spring and Summer. As Poussin developed the painting, however, this theme gradually transformed into the concept of the cycle of life and fortune.

Dance to the Music of Time was executed during the transition from Poussin's early style to his mature period. The painting still evidences the bright palette and warm tones that Poussin used during the late 1620s and early 1630s, but here the space is far more developed and the style far more classicizing, thus pointing the direction towards Poussin's paintings of the 1640s.

The stylized poses of the dancers recall the frozen movements and gestures of Greco-Roman friezes, which were a big influence on Poussin, and other elements such as the garlanded statue to the left of the picture plane reinforces this classicism.

Restrained simplicity:
Art historians usually agree that Poussin's iconographic source for this painting was a book called Iconologia, written by an Italian aesthetician named Cesare Ripa. This "emblem book," published in 1593, was widely used by artists throughout the 17th century as a kind of guide of symbols.

Ripa provided a printed illustration and a written explanation of the best way to represent different figures and values. It seems that Poussin had recourse to Ripa's Iconologia as well, but his references to the work are incredibly subtle.

Theory of the modes:
For Poussin, each and every element in a painting could have a powerful psychological impact on the viewer. The painter thus neglected nothing: everything in his compositions is carefully planned, from the color to the contours to the postures and expressions of his figures.

Here, the gestures and faces of the dancers are particularly communicative, allowing the viewer to identify each dancer with ease: the longing stare of Poverty, the determined grasping of Labor, the haughty disdain of Wealth, and the seductive mischief of Pleasure. The colors worn by each dancer are highly symbolic as well: note, for instance, how close in hue the red of Labor's dress is to the gold robes of Wealth.

A most unusual mark:
There is one element in Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time that has left art historians particularly baffled. Early on, it was noted that there were some curious fingerprints covering the surface of the painting. It was assumed that these thumbprints were in the thick layer of varnish that covered the painting, and that once the picture was cleaned they would go away.

After the painting's cleaning in the 1980s, however, the thumbprints were even clearer than before: it was finally determined that the thumbprints were pressed into the ground of the painting while it was still wet, creating a strange texture all over the painting surface. Because Poussin was notorious for desiring total artistic control and hardly required the help of assistants, it is generally assumed that the print was Poussin's own.

Dance to the Music of Time, c. 1640:
This is an outstanding preparatory drawing for one of the greatest paintings created by the artist

By the mid-1630s, Poussin had finally discovered his mature style. He still continued to focus on historical narratives, but now the influence of Classical art can be seen even more clearly than in his previous paintings.

Compositions, though often still crowded, are now even more orderly and rationally composed, contours become even more pronounced and sharper-edged, and Poussin perfects his use of the "rhetorical gesture," which he derived from the writings of classical orators.

Dance to the Music of Time is among Poussin's most famous paintings.

After spending some time in Rome, however, Poussin's style changed after he had the opportunity to carefully study the masterpieces of antique art. In Poussin's mature period, Greco-Roman friezes, antique statues, and ancient philosophy were his most important influences. Masters of the Italian Renaissance were also an important influence, especially Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci.

Poussin was neither the symbol of 17th century French painting and painter of the establishment, nor was he completely devoid of Baroque dynamism and emotion. Poussin himself would hardly have cared whether or not he was adored or reviled, however. This artist, a fervent believer in Stoicism, appears to have been interested in little more than his studies and his painting; fame and wealth were but mere secondary concerns.

Poussin's sober personality and his carefully thought out theories of art have earned him the nickname of "the philosopher painter."

Technically, Poussin is one of the major painters of the French Baroque. In reality, however, the artist spent almost his entire career living and working in Rome, and could thus be considered as much an Italian painter as a French painter (similar to the case of Spanish Baroque artist Jusepe Ribera).

Poussin may have lived in a different country, however, but the impact of his art back home cannot be overestimated. Poussin's style became the official style at the French Academy in Paris for the rest of the 17th century, and Poussin's paintings were much admired by France's top historical figures, like King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIV, and his ministers Colbert and Le Brun.

Thus, even if Poussin wasn't living and working in the heart of the French Baroque, he did have a profound influence on the molding of its style and concerns. Furthermore, although he lived in Rome for most of his adult life, Poussin was not immune to current events in his motherland: Poussin's correspondence reveals that the civil war of the mid 1640s was extremely upsetting for the artist.

Poussin's paintings may not have been known to a wide audience during his own lifetime, as the artist painted almost exclusively for elite, private patrons, but his art and theory of painting enjoyed undeniable popularity and had an enormous influence on art criticism of the age.

Yet, with the arrival of Romanticism things began to change. Not only was Poussin's art derided by new generations of up-and-coming artists, but art critics began to turn against it as well. The very end of the century started to see a turn in opinion as avant-garde Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne was unequivocally a fan of Poussin and greatly inspired the modern artist in many of his abstract compositions.

Poussin's reputation began to be restored in the 20th century. Anthony Blunt, that notorious Soviet spy-cum-art historian, is widely regarded as the preeminent Poussin expert of the century, and is the author of the definitive tomes on the artist.

Poussin still may not be terribly popular amongst museum goers, but the artist has assuredly earned his place as one of the greatest masters in Western art.

For more information about Poussin and his works please refer to the recommended reading list below.

• Bätschmann, Oskar. Nicolas Poussin: Dialectics of Painting. Reaktion Books, 1990
• Beresford, Richard. A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin. Trustees of the Wallace Collection, 1995
• Blunt, Anthony. The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue. Phaidon, 1966
• Carrier, David. Poussin's Paintings: A Study in Art-Historical Methodology. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993
• Cropper, Elizabeth and Charles Dempsey. Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting. Princeton University Press, 1996
• Friedlaender, Walter. Nicolas Poussin, a New Approach. Abrams, 1966
• Lagerlöf, Margaretha Rossholm. Ideal Landscape: Annibale Carracci, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain. Yale University Press, 1990
• McTighe, Sheila. Nicolas Poussin's Landscape Allegories. Cambridge University Press, 1996
• Oberhuber, Konrad. Poussin, the Early Years in Rome: the Origins of French Classicism. Hudson Hills Press, 1988
• Olson, Todd. Poussin and France: Painting, Humanism, and the Politics of Style. Yale University Press, 2002