Parable of the Sower

The subject is one of Christ's parables: a sower goes out to scatter seed, and only what falls on good ground takes root and bears fruit. What is striking is how earthbound the telling is. There is no halo and no sermon, just a farmer at dusk working a field that looks like the countryside around Bassano del Grappa in the Veneto. That was the invention of Jacopo Bassano, who around 1566 began setting scripture in the working farmland he knew, among real animals and tools. This canvas is one of several versions that came out of his busy workshop from a single design, painted about 1570 by the hands he trained. Down in the field you can still pick out the seed already sprouting where the ground was right.