Titian, Pastoral Concert

The Pastoral Concert (also known by its French titles,  Fête champêtre or Concert Champetre) has long been recognized as a masterpiece of Venetian Renaissance painting; it has also sparked much debate regarding both its authorship and its subject matter. Often attributed to Giorgione, most scholars now favor an attribution to Titian. This fluctuation of attribution is not surprising given Giorgione’s influence on the young Titian, who worked closely with Giorgione early in his career.

Debates about the subject matter

The debates about the painting’s authorship, however, pale in comparison to the debates about its subject matter. Who are these figures? Why are the men clothed and the women nude? Why do the young men not acknowledge their female counterparts, despite their proximity and their nudity? What circumstances brings them together in this manner? These questions have puzzled art historians for centuries and have resulted in many attempts to secure specific identities for the figures. These attempts consistently disappoint and serve ultimately to highlight the painting’s ambiguities and its resistance to a single fixed interpretation. The most successful interpretations are not those that attempt to identify a particular narrative or specific characters, but those that see the painting as the visual equivalent of a pastoral poem. 

Painted poetry

Pastoral poetry (which originated with the Idylls of the ancient Greek poet Theocritus) extols the rustic world of the simple shepherd. It celebrates the physical, sensory beauty of the natural world—it speaks of shady forests, gurgling brooks, lowing herds, and gentle breezes. Musical contests between shepherds are a common motif in pastoral poetry, which is often tinged with melancholy as the contestants sing of lost loves and deceased comrades. The contestants frequently call upon the Muses for inspiration and, when blessed by them, create music of such power and beauty that even the woodland nymphs emerge to listen.

Like so many aspects of ancient culture, pastoral poetry also witnessed a revival during the Renaissance as poets vied to emulate their ancient Greek and Roman predecessors. A key figure in this revival was the poet Jacopo Sannazaro, whose popular poem Arcadia was published in Venice in the first decade of the sixteenth century. Its narrator is a poet from the city who sets aside his lofty aspirations of writing heroic epics and achieving success among cultured city dwellers in order to enjoy the purity and simplicity of the shepherds’ rural existence. He listens to their songs of love and loss, and is inspired to create his own pastoral poetry. Titian’s painting alludes to this hierarchy of poetic genres by juxtaposing the lute—a sophisticated instrument capable of producing complex harmonies, with the primitive pipe—the shepherd’s favored instrument.

Rather than illustrate a particular scene from a pastoral poem, Titian visualizes the mood and motifs of this genre. As in Sannazaro’s Arcadia, the lute-player is a cultured city dweller. Here he has retreated beyond the city visible in the background to the idyllic world of the pastoral poet. 

Perhaps the women are the nymphs who embody the spirit of the place, or the muses who inspire the poet, or personifications of Poetry and Music.  The fountain represents the waters of inspiration that originate on Mount Parnassus, the realm of Apollo, god of music and poetry, and his nine Muses. The women may not be visible to the young men, but their presence is felt in the beauty of the poet’s song. 

A Venetian genre

The Pastoral Concert exemplifies a distinctly Venetian invention focused on the idyllic landscape populated by gods and goddess, nymphs and satyrs, shepherds and peasants. Introduced by Giorgione and developed in the works of Titian and other Venetian artists, this genre became one of the most important artistic contributions of Renaissance Venice—its impact lasting far into the nineteenth century.

Such paintings were produced for the private collections of discerning and educated patrons who understood the evocative, poetic subject matter. The Pastoral Concert was familiar enough in theme to be identified with a particular poetic genre, but elusive enough in details to invite contemplation and conversation. It thus provided a form of recreation that served as a visual and mental retreat for the patron—much like the one experienced by the painting’s fashionable lute player. By looking at the painting and reflecting on the poetry it called to mind, the patron could—at least momentarily—escape to the countryside to enjoy the sights and sounds of the shepherd’s world.^[1]