Poussin's 'Flight into Egypt'

Compared with that of traditional mediaeval representations, the iconography of Poussin's 'Flight into Egypt' 1 (P1. 60) in the Picture Gallery at Dulwich is unusual and somewhat puzzling. In the older type, the Holy Family is depicted travelling in a landscape, of which palm trees and falling idols are common features. But while the introduction of a pyramid, an obelisk and ruins and the presence of an ass indicate the Flight into Egypt, the cross in the sky and-much more-the passage of a river under the conduct of a boatman (an incident recorded neither in canonical nor in apocryphal scripture) demand some explanation. The general association of the Childhood of Christ with the emblems of his Passion needs no comment. It is frequently employed in later mediaeval art, particularly in single-sheet woodcuts, to illustrate the teaching that the Incarnation necessarily involves the Passion.2 In the scene of the Flight into Egypt, however, the cross has a more particular significance, in that the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents, which occasioned the flight, foreshadowed the Crucifixion. This idea is explicit in a painting by Pietro Testa in the Galleria Spada in Rome (P1. 6Ic), where, as a background to the scene of the massacre of the Innocents, the Holy Family is shown traversing a river in a boat which also has a cross on board. Poussin expresses this connection by depicting Christ at a moment when the shining vision of a cross in the sky seems suddenly to have enthralled his attention. With one leg suspended for an instant half-raised, the Child gazes up in rapt wonder, apparently anticipating his triumphant death. In contrast, St. Joseph is shown in contrapostal movement, looking back over his shoulder. Unaware of the cross above, he seems, in the act of turning to choose an empty space in the boat into which to lift the Child, to have become suddenly fascinated by the ass behind him.3