3-016-327 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Concert Champetre, 1734. A day of leisure among the urban classes of elevated social rank on the outskirts of a city. Pater organised his concert into two clearly defined groups that occupy successive pictorial planes and form a diagonal that leads the eye into a misty landscape in the background. The principal group on the left is organised around a couple, of which the man plays the guitar while the woman points to a page in the musical score that she holds, presumably suggesting a piece for him to play. The other figures around them are grouped into pairs, chatting and commenting on the scene, apart from a young man who looks with interest at the musical score. In the group on the right, which is set against a monumental architectural element, the painter places considerable emphasis on small details such as the little girl in the foreground who attracts the dog’s attention with a bone.