Concert Champêtre, and the Dissolution of a Compagnie Through the Lens of Pastoral Poetry
Júlia Sardenberg - January 19, 2023
Titian, Concert Champêtre, ca. 1509. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris.
At first glance, Titian’s Concert Champêtre, painted ca. 1509, seems to simply be about the virtues of a leisurely day in the countryside, depicting a group of figures relishing in pastoral glee. While this perception is not mistaken, this work of art also hides a sense of ephemerality within its subjects. This paper will explore how, through the fusion of realistic and mythological elements in an idyllic setting, Concert Champêtre demonstrates the virtues of a Venetian compagnie in a time of war and difficulty that would lead to its dissolution.
Whether it is due to his central position in the painting or to the contrast between his red, shiny garments and the green tones of the landscape, the lute player is the first figure one’s eyes fall upon. While not easily identifiable to the contemporary gaze, his uniform demonstrated to viewers of the time that he was a member of the Fausti – a subgroup of a Venetian compagnie, the Compagnia della Calza.1
In Renaissance Venice, the compagnies were groups of elite young men who tasked themselves with serving and entertaining each other, the public, and foreign dignitaries through virtuous activities like music, theatre, and balls.2 Being part of societies like these was a source of pride and status for youth who would later go on to play prominent roles in Venetian patrician society.3 The use of a uniform then allowed compagnos like the one portrayed in Titian’s painting to physically demonstrate their participation in groups like the Fausti. Although the early provenance of the painting is unknown, it is likely that one of the 13 regular members of this subgroup of the Compagnia della Calza commissioned it.4 In this sense, the painting serves as a form of portrait not just to the young man that it centers upon, but also of fellow members of this group.
Many older members of Venice’s elite viewed music and other of the compagnies’ activities as unworthy pastimes for young men, not useful for purposes other than simple amusement.5 Nevertheless, the relationship between members of compagnies and music went far beyond entertainment. As Chriscinda Henry writes, music was seen as an activity that , “enlivened their souls, bringing them into harmony with the universe and the natural world.”6 Through portrayed as engaging in musical pursuits, the member of the Fausti depicted in the center of Concert Champêtre seems to capture the virtuosity they associated with these activities both within himself and within his compagnie.
The virtuous role of music is also played upon by the women that surround him. Although they call the viewers’ attention, the men in the picture do not appear to notice their presence. In fact, the two men create their separate group of characters, giving the impression that women are more connected to the landscape than they are to the men.7 The two women seem to blend in so nicely with the background that their nakedness can almost be taken as a normal part of the world that surrounds them.8 This suggests that the women are not part of the real, visible world. Instead, they are nymphs—mythological creatures typically associated with nature,who often serve as muses to poets.9 This is furthered by the relationship between the actions of the nymphs and representations of allegories of music and poetry.
The nymph on the right, who sits with her back toward the viewer, has a clear connection to music through the instrument she holds. The flute, according to a Greek tradition, was invented by the God Hermes and has a powerful effect over its listeners.10 It is particularly prominent in this scenario since there is a connection between music and shepherds, the main protagonists of pastoral scenes, who play this instrument to call their flocks. The nymph in the right, therefore, is not only a representation of powerful music, but also of the connection between music and the scene surrounding her.11
The nymph on the left is pouring water from a pitcher into a well. Inspired by increasingly popular (and at the time, recently uncovered) Roman poetry, nymphs with falling water tended to be associated with the waters of Castaly. In Roman tales, the Castalian Spring inspired the genius of poetry within those who drank from it or listened to its sounds. By providing water to the well, the nymph in Titian’s painting feeds into the sources of inspiration for the compagno’s artistic endeavors, showing that his virtues are also connected to the divine world.13
In a way, this nymph is contributing to more than just the actions of the central figure – she, along with the compagno’s music, is creating a poetic atmosphere that is evoked in the entirety of the painting, almost making it a poem itself. As Phillip Fehl remarks, “The picture is not only active as a painting which one can encompass at one glance, but also in time, like a poem.”14 Fehl refers to the many connections that have been made between Concert Champêtre and important works of pastoral poetry such as Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia, which tells the story of an Italian urban nobleman who ventures into the countryside. By following the point of view of a genre like the pastoral, the compagno, as the only figure in the painting actively playing a musical instrument, conjures this world, placing him as the poetic creator of all that surrounds him.15 If thinking of him as the commissioner of the painting, this also adds to the idea of him wanting to be portrayed as the creator of a world full of virtues.
However, this setting does not seem to be entirely harmonious. As Patricia Eagan described, the world depicted in this painting appears to be split into different groups of people and spaces: men, women, and the landscape.16 But upon closer inspection, one might notice that the two men, for example, although connected by their shared stare, are separated by a stark difference in their garments and tonality. The landscape can also be split into a vast outdoors, with only the presence of a large house on the left, and a more closed off nature captured on the right, with tall trees and a goatherd with his flock. Even though the women are associated through their similarities and contributions to the atmosphere of the painting, they also do not interact, having their backs turned towards one another. These disconnections add small cracks into the idyllic vision suggested by the painting.17
In 1509, the Veneto was under invasion by the League of the Cambrai.18 The vast majority of the young men who were involved with compagnies like the Compagnia della Carza had to leave behind their lives of leisure and participate in the war efforts. The Fausti used to spend most of their time outside Venice, preferring to live within the comforts and riches of the mainland of the Veneto. With the war, they saw many of the lands they used to inhabit be destroyed by armies and fires. By the time the war would end, the Fausti would also be too old to live the life of compagnos, having to attend to the responsibilities of adult patrician life.19 The separations established within the group of men and the landscape could also point towards the contrast between the reality of a patrician man and the idyllic pastoral shepherd life that the Fausti wished they could continue living.20
Jonathan Unglaub argues that the painting operates to the Fausti in the same way a pastoral elegy would in poetry: “The pastoral elegy endows both the singer and his subject with a literary immortality, reifying the endurance of poetry over the evanescence of existence.”21 Translating this into painting, Concert Champêtre works as a physical object that captures the virtuosity and liveliness of the Fausti into eternity, even as the war destroys their spaces, and their youths escape them. Nevertheless, this is not fully realized due to the dichotomies presented between the real and created.
Overall, Titian’s painting combines elements from the lives of the Fausti, pastoral poetry, and mythology to represent the virtues of the compagnie in a physical, longevous medium. However, the fusion of said elements is not entirely fulfilled, with small contrasts between the realistic and fabled elements creating a sense of dissonance. The realities of wartime and the ephemeral nature of groups like the Fausti are then allowed to seep into this idyllic world.
1. Henry, Chriscinda. “Pastoral Fellowship and the Performance of Virtuosity.” In Playful Pictures: art, leisure, and entertainment in the Venetian Renaissance home, 62.
2. Ibid., 59
3. Ibid., 58.
4. Ibid., 63.
5. Ibid., 55.
6. Ibid., 55.
7. Egan, Patricia. “Poesia and the Fête Champêtre” The Art Bulletin, vol. 41 (Dec. 1959), 304.
8. Fehl, Philipp. “The Hidden Genre: A study of the Concert Champêtre in the Louvre.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 16, no.2 (Dec. 1957), 157.
9. Henry, Chriscinda. “Pastoral Fellowship and the Performance of Virtuosity.” In Playful Pictures: Art, leisure, and entertainment in the Venetian Renaissance home, 60.
10. Egan, Patricia. “Poesia and the Fête Champêtre” The Art Bulletin, vol. 41 (Dec. 1959), 309.
11. Ibid., 309.
12. Ibid., 311.
13. Ibid., 311.
14. Fehl, Philipp. “The Hidden Genre: A study of the Concert Champêtre in the Louvre.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 16, no.2 (Dec. 1957), 158.
15. Henry, Chriscinda. “Pastoral Fellowship and the Performance of Virtuosity.” In Playful Pictures: art, leisure, and entertainment in the Venetian Renaissance home, 60.
16. Egan, Patricia. “Poesia and the Fête Champêtre” The Art Bulletin, vol. 41 (Dec. 1959), 304.
17. Unglaub, Jonathan. “The "Concert Champêtre": The Crises of History and the Limits of Pastoral.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1997), 47.
18. Ibid., 46.
19. Henry, Chriscinda. “Pastoral Fellowship and the Performance of Virtuosity.” In Playful Pictures: art, leisure, and entertainment in the Venetian Renaissance home, 57.
20. Unglaub, Jonathan. “The "Concert Champêtre": The Crises of History and the Limits of Pastoral.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1997), 47.
21. Ibid., 55
Bibliography:
Egan, Patricia. “Poesia and the Fête Champêtre.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 41 (Dec. 1959): 303–313.
Fehl, Philipp. “The Hidden Genre: A study of the Concert Champêtre in the Louvre.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 16, no.2 (Dec. 1957): 153–168.
Henry, Chriscinda. “Pastoral Fellowship and the Performance of Virtuosity.” In Playful Pictures: art, leisure, and entertainment in the Venetian Renaissance home, 55 – 94, University Park, Penn State University Press, 2021.
Unglaub, Jonathan. “The "Concert Champêtre": The Crises of History and the Limits of Pastoral.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1997): 46 – 96.
