Born two years before Descartes, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was a French painter who worked most of his life in Rome.

    He reached Rome at age 30, in 1624, after training in France in his early years. There, he undertook commissions for paintings of religious and mythological subjects. These were often large canvases set in sweeping landscapes. In 1641 he was called back to France to become First Painter to the King, a post he held for 24 years--though only two of them were spent in Paris. Nevertheless, the style he represented is known as "French Baroque."

    The term "Baroque" in art denotes a certain exaggerated expression, encouraged by the Church in order to attract the people (many of whom were still illiterate, and got their religious learning from images). The French Baroque, however, remained more refined, and this can be seen in Poussin's work.

    His paintings often reflect deep philosophical thinking. In one of them, "Landscape with Diogenes," a famous Cynic philosopher (who rejected all the worldly values such as wealth, power, and fame) sees a man drinking by using his hands to bring water to his lips. This causes him to throw away his final possession--a cup.

    One of his best-known paintings is "The Arcadian Shepherds." It shows three shepherds and a woman gathered around a tomb reading, "Et in Arcadia Ego." If this sounds familiar, it may be because the painting was central to the conspiracy theory of the authors Bagient, Leigh and Lincoln, who wrote a book called "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail." This was the main source of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code."

    The painting, these people say, is part of a series of clues leading to the location of a secret tomb of Jesus Christ somewhere in France. The explanation is simpler than this. "Arcadia" was a sort of Heaven-on-earth, a place that represented supreme happiness. Poussin's painting was a reminder that even there, death exists: the phrase written on the tomb can be translated, "I am even in Arcadia."

    Poussin died in Rome, aged 71. Today, a gallery in the Louvre named after him contains many of his paintings.

    1. precise, exact

    2. idea that some events are not coincidences, but part of some hidden plan

    3. agreed to do, worked on

    4. wide, covering a lot of area

    5. grave, burial place

    6. shows, says

    7. highest

    8. hints, guides to something

    9. overdone, overstated

    10. refused to accept

    ANSWERS: 1. refined 2. conspiracy theory 3. undertook 4. sweeping 5. tomb 6. denotes 7. supreme 8. clues 9. exaggerated 10. rejected