The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the collection The Bucolics, written by the Latin poet Virgil (70-19 BC) between 42 and 37 BC. B.C.. Through scenes from the life of a shepherd, he indirectly evokes the political situation of his time and transposes idyllic Arcadia into his native Roman countryside. It is also a nod to pastoral poetry, a literary genre in its own right known since antiquity having inspired porcelain in the 18th century.

 

Following a similar principle of transposing one context into another, the works in this exhibition transport us from the sometimes innocuous evocation of the natural world – of country life, flowers, trees, birds or real or imaginary animals. - towards other realities in direct contact with urban, political, social or environmental concerns that are salient today as well as at different times when pastoral care resurfaced. The works presented do not simply represent or imitate nature in the broad sense but transform it into supports for metaphorical or symbolic representation.