Pastoral Scene 1560

Jacopo Bassano's "Pastoral Scene" is an oil painting on canvas, a common enough medium, but consider how radical Bassano's choice of subject was! Paint has to come from somewhere. Ground pigments, mixed meticulously with oil, and applied with care. Normally this was all in service to some noble vision – classical mythology, scenes from the bible, and the lives of the wealthy and powerful. But Bassano chose a far less elevated subject: a scene from everyday rural life, with peasants and farm animals. Look closely and you'll see how his down-to-earth subject is rendered with as much care as any grand historical painting. The bulk of the cow, the tiredness of the laborers, the way the light filters through the trees – all observed with incredible attention. Bassano elevates the everyday. And in doing so, he reminds us that all art – no matter how exalted – is rooted in the material world, and in the labor required to make it.