Tip: move over the painting to use the lens.
Pastoral Scene
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta · 1740
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682–1754)
- Date
- 1740
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 191.8 × 143 cm (75 1/2 × 56 1/4 in.); Framed: 208.3 × 158.8 × 10.2 cm (82 × 62 1/2 × 4 in.)
- Made in
- Italy
- Style
- Realism
- Where to see it
- Art Institute of Chicago
Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection · CC0 Public Domain · Art Institute of Chicago · image via Wikimedia Commons · see it at the museum ↗
Notes from the museum
One of Venice’s leading painters, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta transformed the gritty realism and dramatic light effects of earlier Baroque painting into his own poetic style. This is one of two paintings of life-size, rustic figures that Piazetta made for his patron, Field Marshall Johann Matthias von der Schulenberg. Their meaning remains mysterious. The half-naked boy holding a basket of grapes has been interpreted as the infant Bacchus, the god of wine, although Piazzetta made no reference in his description of the work to a symbolic meaning. The artist was probably responding to his patron’s taste for pastoral scenes, a genre that appealed to middle- and upper-class city dwellers for its idealized views of rural life.
Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.
Slow Look
- The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
- The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
- The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
- One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
- The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?
About Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was an Italian Rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes.
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