Summary

Object

Pasce Oves Meas   (  )
Artist	w:en:Nicolas Poussin (attributed to though not definitive)
Title	Pasce Oves Meas
Object type	painting object_type QS:P31,Q3305213
Description	Painting is displayed at English: Museo Diocesano (Lecce) . See below for more information.
Date	before 1665

Photograph

DescriptionNicolas poussin (attr.), pasce mea oves, xvii secolo, da s. matteo, lecce.jpg	English: “Feed my sheep/lambs”. John 21.15-17
Date	13 August 2016, 10:43:43
Source	Own work
Author	Sailko
Permission (Reusing this file)	I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0CC BY 3.0 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 truetrue

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More Information

Some information about this painting and why it is attributed to Poussin, automatically translated from the Italian from this waybackmachine

The painting is of extreme interest from a critical point of view for at least two reasons. The first is that the iconography takes up literally, but in reverse order, that of one of the cartoons, now kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, executed by Raphael for the tapestries intended for the Sistine Chapel and commissioned by Leo X (cf. J. Shearman, Raphael's Cartoons in the Royal Collection and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel , London 1972; M. Prisco-P. de Vecchi, The complete work of Raphael , Milan 1979, pp. 113-114), of whose fortune the painting constitutes further evidence, in addition to the prints. The second is in the character of this recovery, a paradigmatic example of seventeenth-century classicism.

The tapestries, as the sources notoriously testify, were particularly praised for the skill with which the weavers had almost succeeded in reproducing the pictorial qualities of the model. Also considering that the cartoons were sent to Brussels and were no longer visible, the model the author used must have been the tapestry rather than the print. From the compositional point of view, with respect to the model, a different balance between landscape and figures is introduced here, in the sense that the former acquires more space and a more autonomous breath, with a consequent downsizing of the monumentality of the figures. Furthermore, these, while respecting the composition and design of the model, of which they have preserved the Olympian imperturbability, have however taken on a greater sense of truth due to the light, which now enhances the chromatic quality of their clothes. If we take into account these stylistic peculiarities and the relationship with Raphael, one thinks almost naturally of Poussin, who, as reported by GP Bellori, his first and most important biographer, had studied and copied drawings by Raphael during his training. The biographer himself, among other things, had with critical intelligence fully emphasized the skills acquired in the field of study of the «natural effects of light and shadows of bodies» (Lives of modern painters, sculptors and architects , Rome 1674, in the ed. Turin 1976, p. 452).

Indeed, if one looks carefully, it is the light with the equivalent of the shadow that characterizes the representation in a peculiar way, the color qualifying as a means of construction of the form by reason of the " lumen et umbra " (this is, as known, the motto which accompanies the allegorical engraving which opens the biography of Bellori).

Even the landscape, which gives breath to the scene by expanding the space of the event, then acquires a very different value, moving between the idealizing model of a Lorrain - to whom it seems to refer that bit of chromatic and luministic fusion that characterizes it, obtained through pictorial passages soft and delicate - and a more decisive sense of truth - see in particular the meteorological quality of the sky just next to the sunsets and the melancholy and nostalgic dawns of the Lorraine. As is well known, the theme is taken from the Gospel of John (XXI, 15-19) and refers to the appearance of Christ on the shores of Lake Tiberias after the Resurrection, when, recognized by the apostles, he addressed the exhortation to Peter « feeds oves meas». The representation foresees, in fact, the presence of the lake, of the boat from which the apostles had descended and the sheep; which Christ indicates with his left hand, while with his right he recalls Peter, who has knelt in front of him and holds the key in his hands (this, as is known, is the attribute that appears in his iconography together with curly hair, according to the oriental type, and the ancient toga).

To note for the reference to the Johannine Gospel, the recognizability of the disciple whom Jesus loved (as he declares himself in the quoted passage), which Raphael had wanted to highlight, distinguishing him as the youngest and as the one who manifests his special affective relationship towards the Master in the momentum of his body and his gesture. The sustained quality of the painting and the undoubted references, especially in the structure, to paintings by Poussin orient its authorship in its favor, and only an excess of prudence, in the absence of documentary evidence, invites us to suspend the definitive judgement.