Landscape With A Man Killed By A Snake

If the viewer doesn't look at Poussin's Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake too closely, he may just think that it's yet another simple and idyllic pastoral scene. Anything more than a cursory glance, however, reveals the chilling opposite: this is not a painting about the heroic perfection of nature, but about death, terror and dread.

In the immediate foreground, a giant snake smothers a pale green corpse; screaming in fright, a man flees the scene, his shouts causing alarm to a washerwoman in the distance. The figures are miniscule in comparison to the landscape that dominates the picture, but their gestures and expressions are so evocative and make a lasting impression on the viewer.

Art historians have long debated the possible meaning of Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake (see different interpretations below), but have more or less agreed that this subject has no literary source. Some attempts have been made to identify the location of the painting as the area around the town of Fondi, situated south-east of Rome, whose population was devastated by a terrible plague of invading snakes from the nearby swamplands during the 17th century.

Painted towards the end of his career, Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake is an excellent example of Poussin's mature style. The work evidences an unprecedented brilliance in the complexity of the composition and coloring, and is particularly notable for the following qualities;

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