Titian, Concert In The Open Air, 1510

Imagine living in New York City. A Sunday afternoon, you wander aimlessly through the Central Park. You see people playing guitar. You would have walked right by during the weekdays, but this is Sunday, and the weather is nice, you are not in a rush. So you sit down and enjoy. There are people jogging in their colorful shorts and sleeveless tank tops, which you find annoying. So you close your eyes. It's funny that the city is different in your head: the skyscrapers fade and the country opens out and falls into the woods; maybe there is a shepherd, but definitely no people jogging. The only thing left in your head that once belongs to the city is the sound of the guitar and the feeling of a cool, fresh Sunday afternoon. This is Concert In The Open Air, only 500 years later.

The painting very much embodies the manneristic style of sixteenth-century Venice. In its gentle and blurred line, it depicts two young men, friends perhaps, sharing their appreciation about music and poetry, while companied by two nude, yet graceful women. Considering the fact that the men are well dressed in front of their naked female confidants, it is arguable if the women exist but in their imagination. However, unarguably, the woman with the vase represents the muse of tragic poetry, and the woman with the flute that of pastoral poetry. 

The composition in this painting is deliberately designed. The line of the human figures, the hillside slopes, and the branches of the trees form diagonal, parallel and intersecting patterns, which act with the vertical lines formed by the basin, tree trunk and houses in the background. All together they make the painting natural, peaceful and frameless. When looking at the painting, one cannot help longing an Arcadian lifestyle, not of the vulgar life of the shepherds in the middle ground, but of the serene leisure filled with cultivated grace in the foreground. This is Concert In The Open Air.