(Bassano del Grappa 1566–1621 Venice)
Fire,
oil on canvas, 116 x 175 cm, framed

The present painting repeats, if with several distinct modifications, Jacopo Bassano’s composition in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, executed in 1585/86. The first difference with regard to Jacopo’s composition is the male figure in the foreground holding a cask in its hands. Major compositional changes reveal themselves in the middle ground, where a burning house is lacking and the peasants are depicted in different poses; the landscape on the left, rendered in contre-jour light, shows fruiting branches, while the sky is dominated by an accumulation of dark clouds. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Elements were accompanied by allegories of the temperaments: Water – phlegmatic; Fire – choleric; Air – sanguine; Earth – melancholic. Jacopo Bassano modified the traditional iconography by linking the Elements to everyday routines. He conceived compositions in which the figures are rendered in open landscapes performing their work. The compositions by Jacopo, the father, were also repeated by both of his sons, Francesco and Gerolamo. The palette of the present painting concentrates on brown hues, with individual passages modulated by brighter tones. From surviving documents we know that in the father’s workshop Gerolamo played the role of imitator and copyist. Similarly schematic brushstrokes can be found in Gerolamo’s painting Saints Lucia and Martin with the Beggar of 1598 (formerly in the parish church of San Martino a Campese, now in the Museo Civico di Bassano del Grappa). There the execution of the clouds and deep greens resemble those of the present painting, so that it can also be dated to the last decade of the 16th or to the first decade of the 17th century.