Pastoral

Pastoral is an interest in nature and romanticization of rural life in culture and art. Pastoral embodies scenes from the lives of shepherds and shepherdesses against the backdrop of idyllic landscapes with sheep, sun, flowers and fruits. The heroes of pastoral can be shepherdesses, gardeners, milkmaids and various other cute girls who flirt with shepherds in the shade of trees or in gardens.

The image of a peasant woman in pastoral is such as a lady of high society might imagine – a deep neckline (sometimes very much so), a waist tightened with a corset (stays), a chemise visible in the sleeves, a silk dress with a thin semi-transparent apron, hair casually tucked into flowers, and a straw bergère hat on her head (fr. “bergère” is a shepherdess).

The pastoral arose in the 16th century, but became especially popular in the 18th century (approximately 1720s – 1780s). Pastoral is one of the attributes of the Rococo style. Pastoral is not a fashion trend – it is an image for allegories. Paintings of shepherds and shepherdesses decorate bedrooms and boudoirs (by François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard). Noble ladies in the image of flower girls and shepherdesses pose for artists and dress up for masquerade balls. Composers create “Pastorals” in the music for numerous performances and operas, where dancers depict rural life in lush silk dresses. The theme of pastoral in popular (in the 18th century) porcelain figurines. Very often you can find paired figurines of the Shepherdess and the Shepherd. For the 19th century, the porcelain figurine of a shepherdess becomes a banality and a symbol of old times (Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep”).

The desire for “nature”, for an idyllic village was called for by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and in 1783 the French queen Marie Antoinette brought it to life in her farm “Hameau de la Reine” in Versailles. Around the same time, the famous simple shirt dress Chemise a la Reine appeared.

Idealization ended with the Rococo era and the French Revolution in 1789.