Musik in einer Landschaft

Guercino painted this around 1617, when he was in his mid-twenties and still working near Cento, the small town between Bologna and Ferrara where he grew up. He had almost no formal training, and was known locally for the squint that gave him his nickname, which means the cross-eyed one. This is a small thing, barely larger than a sheet of paper, painted not on canvas but on a copper plate, which gives the colours a smooth enamel-like shine. Figures make music together in the open country, a pastoral idea Venetian painters had made popular a century earlier. Guercino would soon be called to Rome for grand ceiling work, but here he is still a provincial painter turning out a cabinet picture for someone's private room.