Rustic Concert with Pipe and Violin
1635 - 1637.Not on display
This work belongs to the so-called peasant interiors, one of the new genres of painting that emerged and developed in the Netherlandsin the early seventeenth century. In Houbraken and in early inventories they are described as een boertje, (a little peasant) or as toeback rookerchen (tobacco smokers). The consolidation and appreciation of this genre was fostered by the satirical and moralising literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which was in turn rooted in the Kerelslied or fourteenthcentury peasant ballads composed by the knights during the struggles with the peasants. However, the term kerel, which originally denoted the freeman peasant or villager, came to be used to describe the churl, an uncouth, boorish and coarse peasant whose behaviour, dominated by instincts and passions, contrasted with the rules of conduct of the new bourgeois class. This is the type of villager depicted in the peasant interiors that were acquired by the bourgeoisie as a source of entertainment or learning.
Van Ostade´s original -and essential- contribution to the peasant genre consisted in replacing the grotesque and violent scenes of Adriaen Brouwer with pleasant compositions infused with humour, thereby transforming the satirical depiction into a positive portrayal of the peasant class at moments of leisure and amusement. The genre thus acquired a new significance which, in Schnackenburg`s opinion (1981), has its literary parallel in a series of texts that emerged in mid-seventeenth-century Holland in defence of country life. The scene unfolds inside a peasants` hut. The light directs the viewer`s gaze to the centre of the picture, where a man is playing a violin and a woman a pipe, accompanying the joyful singing of another woman and two men. One of the men is leaning on a bench, beating out the rhythm with his cap. In the background, a man and a boy are seated beside the fireplace.
Rustic Concert with Pipe and Violin is closely related, both in style and composition, to Peasant Dance in the Darmstadt Museum, dated 1635, and Peasants playing Cards from the Liechtenstein collection, dated 1637, and can therefore be considered to belong to the same period. As was the case in his earlier period, the background is closed off by a wall, although in this case the surrounding space acquires greater relevance and more attention is paid to tools and accessories. Once again, the influence of the religious scenes painted by Rembrandt in the 1630s is apparent in the treatment of the light. As in the artist`s previous phase, the brushwork is impasto in the brighter part of the picture and almost resembles watercolour in the objects and details in the backdrop, where shapes blend into one other.
Posada Kubissa, Teresa, Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2009, p.103-104
