Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (1488-89 Pieve di Cadore – 1576 Venice) – Village concert Part 2 Louvre

Description of Giorgione’s painting The Rural Concert

The representative of the so-called Venetian school of painting, Giorgione knew a great deal about depicting poetized pastoral landscapes. In The Rural Concert (another title, Concert in the Open Air), this is precisely the kind of landscape that serves as a backdrop.

Majestic trees with their softly shaped crowns, the calm summer sky with the clouds slowly drifting across it, a small house in the background and a shepherd grazing his goats. All this serene pastoralism is in harmony with the flowing lines of the young men’s clothes and the stately forms of their girlfriends. The colors of their clothes are muted, and their movements are unhurried. The boys are fully and completely immersed in the music and do not give themselves up to contemplate the sensual beauty of the two women, whose movements are restrained and quiet.

At the same time, the nature in the picture seems as if it submits to the art in the person of young men with musical instruments. It seems that just stopped the flute in the hands of one of the women, the strings of the lute in the hands of a young man are trembling, and the sounds of the shepherd’s bagpipe can be heard in the distance. A trickle of water gurgles quietly in the fountain, on which the second woman leans. The overall poetic atmosphere softens the somewhat ambiguous perception of the composition with the two naked women who are either allegorical figures or courtesans out in the open air.

Initially the painting had a balance of warm and cold hues, but the varnish that covered it darkened over time, giving the work a golden coloring. But this by no means changed the poetic nature of the composition, where sensuality and joy of being are balanced with a harmonious, even enlightened attitude to life.

The peculiar charm of the work of Giorgione, whose pupil was the famous painter Titian, is fully revealed in this painting.