Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)
LICHNER, MAGDOLNA: Additional material to establishing the subject of Jacopo Bassano's Sleeping shepherd
biblical text (Luke 10:41-42) the protagonists of service versus recognition are sharply contrasted where contemplative life is declared preferable. 50 Aikema might have been led to his ideas by the fact that thinking, meditation, the immersion in an inner, spiritual or metaphysic world are closely connected with melancholy and a state of inactivity. To put it in a simpler way: are meditation, contemplation, melancholy (outwardly seen as idling, often slumber, half sleep) vices or virtues? In some cases medieval and northern arts do connect musing, brooding with the notion of acedia, 51 sluggishness, which fact might have influenced Aikema. In Italy of the 15-16. centuries, on the other hand, renouncing the world for an intensive spiritual activity of the mind was held in high respect both in literature and arts, its representation is permeated with some sadness and lyricism, and the setting is frequently a bucolic landscape. It's not by chance that the forerunners of Jacopo's relaxing shepherds can be spotted in the Arcadia-like background landscapes of the Venetian Giovanni Bellini's sad and humble Madonnas. 52 Consequently the range of the sources quoted copiously, though with same bias, by Aikema ought to be completed, among others, with literary texts. The most important author, with regard to the interpretation of the Budapest picture, is Virgil. His works were among the most popular readings, in this respect second only to the Bible, in Venice. 53 Since Panofsky's and Wittkover's studies 54 researchers of Venetian painting are unanimous in maintaining that the bucolic poetry of Theokritos and Virgil exerted a strong influence on 16th century art, though the authors paid less attention to the Chris50 See the inscription of the engraving by Jan Sadeler based on the painting in possession of Pietro Cornetti, Pan op.cit. (note 17.) cat. 5. A parallelistic case in Old Testament is that of Lea and Rachel, and it probably is not by chance that among Jacopo's early works this is the subject of one fresco, see the interpretation by Giuliana Ericani: Jacopo and Fresco Painting, in Jacopo Bassano, c. 1510-1592. Fort Worth, Texas 1993, 224-226. 51 See Wenzel, S., The sin of sloth: Accedia in medieval thought and literature, Chapel Hill, 1967. 52 The type Madonna dell 'Umiltà, The Madonna of Humility, and its peculiar cult in Venice, symbolism of plants - see Levi d'Ancona, M., The Garden of Renaissance. Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting, Florence 1977. 53 The first printed edition of Virgil's works appeared in 1469 in Rome, then Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneid in one volume in Venice in 1470; then again in 1471 and 1472, then in every year in the first half of the 16th century. In 1520 the Eclogues appeared with Christophoro Landino's commentaries. Bucolics and Georgics together in 1499 and 1544. The Georgics alone, in a separate volume came first in 1543 in "vulgar" language (La Georgica di Vergilio - Da M. Antonio Maria Negriroli Gentilhuomo Ferrarese tradotta in versi volgari sciolti. Alcune rime del medesimo dirette a vari personaggi, una in morte di Ludovico Ariosto / Ogni cosa novissimamente venua in luce e con somma diligentia stampa per Fulvio Pellegrino Morato, Venetia, Melchior Sessa, 1543.) Source for the data of publications: Mambelli, G., Gli Annali delle Edizioni Virgiliani, Fiorentina, 1954. 54 Panofsky, E., Et in Arcadia ego: Poussin and the Elegiac tradition, in Meaning in the Visual Arts, New York 1957. 295-320. Wittkover, R. Giorgione and Arcady, in Idea and Image, Hampshire 1978, 161163.
