ROSA, Salvator

The painting is datable to Rosa’s Tuscan years. A smaller version is in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome and is signed in monogram.

The two paintings, A Friar Tempted by Demons and Anchorites Tempted by Demons, were acquired by the National Gallery with an attribution to Magnasco. This attribution was maintained by the Gallery until 1997, even though the quality of the paint surface and the brushstrokes - larger than the brief and nervous strokes of Magnasco - lead to questions about it. The discovery of the monogram signature “SR”, made during a recent restoration, has enabled the attribution of the painting to Rosa.

The theme of desert hermits is a recurring motif in Rosa’s work during the first half of the 1660’s. In 1661 he painted the altarpieces of St Paul the Hermit for the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Milan; while a 1662 letter from the artist to Giovanni Battista Ricciardi recounts how impressed he had been by seeing real hermitages in the wild landscape of the Apennine mountains during a trip to Loreto.

In the backgrounds of the National Gallery’s two oval canvases, savage nature devours the remains of classical buildings. In such pictures, Rosa anticipated the eighteenth century trend for pictures of ruins. Conversely, the later taste for such romantic expressions explains why Rosa’s pictures were particularly prized by connoisseurs of the following centuries. Rosa’s written satire Babylonia against the Court of Rome, composed in 1657-58, is a literary reflection of the same themes. The subject of the tormented monk also connects to the demon and witch pictures that appear in Rosa’s work as early as the late 1640’s when the artist, at the end of his Florentine sojourn, wrote the poem The Witch. Another recurring motif is the arched opening through which a luminous background is visible. The contrast between this background luminosity and foreground grimness has parallels in numerous works of Rosa, stretching back to the very beginning of his career (for example the Landscape with Waterfall at the Palazzo Pitti).

The two paintings, A Friar Tempted by Demons and Anchorites Tempted by Demons, were acquired by the National Gallery with an attribution to Magnasco. This attribution was maintained by the Gallery until 1997, even though the quality of the paint surface and the brushstrokes - larger than the brief and nervous strokes of Magnasco - lead to questions about it. The discovery of the monogram signature “SR”, made during a recent restoration, has enabled the attribution of the painting to Rosa.

The theme of desert hermits is a recurring motif in Rosa’s work during the first half of the 1660’s. In 1661 he painted the altarpieces of St Paul the Hermit for the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Milan; while a 1662 letter from the artist to Giovanni Battista Ricciardi recounts how impressed he had been by seeing real hermitages in the wild landscape of the Apennine mountains during a trip to Loreto.

In the backgrounds of the National Gallery’s two oval canvases, savage nature devours the remains of classical buildings. In such pictures, Rosa anticipated the eighteenth century trend for pictures of ruins. Conversely, the later taste for such romantic expressions explains why Rosa’s pictures were particularly prized by connoisseurs of the following centuries. Rosa’s written satire Babylonia against the Court of Rome, composed in 1657-58, is a literary reflection of the same themes. The subject of the tormented monk also connects to the demon and witch pictures that appear in Rosa’s work as early as the late 1640’s when the artist, at the end of his Florentine sojourn, wrote the poem The Witch. Another recurring motif is the arched opening through which a luminous background is visible. The contrast between this background luminosity and foreground grimness has parallels in numerous works of Rosa, stretching back to the very beginning of his career (for example the Landscape with Waterfall at the Palazzo Pitti).

Democritus, the great pre-Socratic philosopher and founder of a strictly materialist concept of the world sought new explanations for birth and death, appearance and disappearance. According to his theory of “atomism”, atoms are the smallest parts of all substances, uniting and dividing in eternal swirling movements. His ethical system called for a life of moderation and tranquillity foregoing most sensual joys.

Rosa depicts him in the traditional pose of melancholy, amidst a setting of decay, destruction and desolation. Animal skulls and bones, symbols of the past greatness of antiquity (vase, altar and herm) and symbols of fallen power (the dead eagle) are featured in this wasteland overcast with heavy grey clouds. An owl high in the tree is his only living companion, both a sign of night and of wisdom. Rosa’s Democritus is not the philosopher who has reached the goal of his contemplation, nor does he represent serene tranquillity or the superior cognitive powers of the analytic mind. Instead, we see a forsaken thinker contemplating the things that have been the subject of his intellectual endeavours: death, the past, turbulent disquietude, fragmentation. The vanitas symbolism of the objects does not go unanswered: in the figure of the pensive philosopher lies the germ of a response, still caught in melancholy lethargy.

Democritus, the great pre-Socratic philosopher and founder of a strictly materialist concept of the world sought new explanations for birth and death, appearance and disappearance. According to his theory of “atomism”, atoms are the smallest parts of all substances, uniting and dividing in eternal swirling movements. His ethical system called for a life of moderation and tranquillity foregoing most sensual joys.

Rosa depicts him in the traditional pose of melancholy, amidst a setting of decay, destruction and desolation. Animal skulls and bones, symbols of the past greatness of antiquity (vase, altar and herm) and symbols of fallen power (the dead eagle) are featured in this wasteland overcast with heavy grey clouds. An owl high in the tree is his only living companion, both a sign of night and of wisdom. Rosa’s Democritus is not the philosopher who has reached the goal of his contemplation, nor does he represent serene tranquillity or the superior cognitive powers of the analytic mind. Instead, we see a forsaken thinker contemplating the things that have been the subject of his intellectual endeavours: death, the past, turbulent disquietude, fragmentation. The vanitas symbolism of the objects does not go unanswered: in the figure of the pensive philosopher lies the germ of a response, still caught in melancholy lethargy.

Salvator Rosa painted several versions of this subject, including his famous work painted for Marchese Carlo Gerini in circa 1645-48 (also known as The Philosopher’s Grove), now in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. The story of the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope is recounted by the Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius in his Lives of the Philosophers (vol. VI, chapter 3). A Cynic philosopher, Diogenes lived in Athens and Corinth during the 4th century B.C.. He lived a life of extreme abstinence, renouncing all worldly goods and taking up home in a pithos (or large tub) in the Metroum. The present episode illustrates Diogenes, dressed in a simple cloak and carrying a staff, casting away his cup on witnessing a young boy drinking water using only his hands.

Rosa, who originates from southern Italy, moved to Florence in 1640 and became the court painter of the Medici. He painted here idyllic landscapes, demonic, thrilling scenes and portraits, among them this self-portrait.

This early painting by Salvator Rosa from his Florentine period represents an evening landscape with travellers in the foreground, the sea beyond.

Its ancient, monumental scale dwarfing the transient humans, this natural rock formation is rendered awesome by the contrast between effulgent light and deep shadows. The scene, with rushing cascade, is not quiet.

Signed on the plank at bottom centre: ROSA.

Salvator Rosa, painter, poet, etcher and musician, was one of the most interesting artists of the Italian Baroque. He worked in Naples, Florence and Rome, painting mostly Graeco-Roman historical scenes, allegories, landscapes and battle scenes. He himself thought most highly of his figure compositions because of their moral and philosophic content, but even his contemporaries found these works too intricate and contrived, preferring his romantic and beautiful landscapes and violent battle scenes.

This landscape, together with its companion-piece Rocky Landscape with Waterfall, was only recently recognized as a signed and authentic work by Rosa. Both pictures were yellow and darkened, with age, but cleaning restored them to their original beauty, and the signature, once believed to be a forgery, turned out to be genuine. When compared with Rosa’s early landscapes in the galleries of Florence and Modena, similarities of style and subject are evident.

The painting is mentioned in contemporary records and is known to have been acquired from the artist’s friend Francesco Cordini for the Ambras collection by Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Tyrol, along with several other works by Rosa. It later passed to the Imperial collection in Vienna before being transferred to Buda Castle, and from there to the National Museum in Budapest in 1848.

Salvator Rosa created large-format heroic battle scenes that did not describe specific historical events but expressed formally the fury of combat. These heroic battles won him fame throughout Europe.

More modest in dimension and light effects than his grander works, this harbour scene is even more proto-Romantic. Its ruined structures are so long abandoned that trees are growing from them, and all is tinged with a delicate, wistful azure.

Odysseus (Ulysses) landed on the shores of the kingdom of Alcinous by a river where the king’s daughter Nausicaa came with her maidens to wash clothes. Odysseus, naked but for a loincloth, creeps out of the bushes and approaches the princess. Her attendants, having finished their work, are making a picnic on the grass. They are startled at the sight.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 13 minutes):

Claudio Monteverdi: Il ritorno d’Ulisse, Act I, Duet of Odysseus and Pallas Athene

The portrait was also known with title Portrait of a Bandit, Portrait of the Brigand. Due to the similarity to the authentic self-portraits of the artist it is also assumed to be a self-portrait painted from a mirror.

The portrait shows the painter’s wife Lucrezia, who also served as model for other Rosa paintings such as the 1642 Allegory of Poetry also in the possession of the National Gallery in Rome. Though Rosa met Lucrezia in Florence in 1640, the period to which this painting belongs, he did not actually married her until 1673, when he was on his deathbed. The painting remained in the possession of Rosa’s heirs for centuries.

The painting is dated to after Lucrezia’s return to Naples in 1657. Rosa depicts her with a deep degree of psychological penetration, dramatized by the highlighting of the face against the dark background.

Salvator Rosa was quirky and original, as well known for his writing as for his painting. He was among the most popular painters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when his literary, picturesque approach affirmed the latest art theories. Pythagoras and the Fisherman - one of two canvases from the life of the philosopher, the other, Pythagoras Emerging from the Underworld, being in the Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth - shows what a fine colourist and dramatist Rosa could be when painting at his best.

Ovid (Met. 14:130-153) tells how the Sibyl of Cumae, in southern Italy, was loved by Apollo. He bribed her by offering to prolong her life for as many years as there were grains in a heap of dust, in return for her embraces. She refused him and although he kept his word he denied her perpetual youth, so she was condemned to centuries as a wizened crone. The Sibyl, a young woman, is shown standing before Apollo holding out her cupped hands which contain the heap of dust. He sits on a rock before her, one hand resting on his lyre.

The subject is first seen in the 17th century.

This painting is the companion piece of Salvator Rosa’s Harbour with Ruins.

Towards the end of his life Rosa turned to a type of landscape painting that convey a disturbing, sinister atmosphere, a far cry from the ideal landscape of Poussin or Claude Lorrain, which he emulated in his early career.

According to the inscription, this picture was a gift by Rosa to his friend Giovanni Battista Ricciardi (1624-1686), a man of letters and a reader in moral philosophy at Pisa.

Salvator Rosa, who was active predominantly in Rome and Florence, was one of the most versatile and idiosyncratic artists of the 17th century. He used - and also criticized - every linguistic means for this appeal. He was a painter, engraver, poet, actor and musician in one. In about 1641 he painted his self-portrait.

Standing out against a sky whose colours are threatening, we see the dark silhouette of a three-quarter-length figure in a reddish-brown coat, holding in his right hand a tablet with an inscription: Aut tace / Aut Loquere meliora / silentio (Either be silent or say something better than silence). This inscription is a message urging us to keep silent, unless we really and truly have something to say which is better than silence. This challenging maxim, which Rosa had borrowed from classical aphorisms, is matched by a head inclined in melancholy fashion to one side, the eyes staring at the beholder with a penetrating gaze from beneath a black cap. Because the face with the energetically tight lips is only illuminated from one side, in the expression of the surly man is reflected the depression which also keeps the tension between the figure and the light of the sky.

The Prodigal Son is depicted as a shepherd from southern Italy, being deep in troubled thought.

The story is taken from the Old Testament ((I Sam. 28). On the eve of a battle with the Philistines, Saul, the king of Israel feeling himself forsaken by God in a critical hour, consulted a necromancer, the witch of Endor, to know what the future held. He commanded her to call up the spirit of the prophet Samuel who, during his lifetime, had been Saul’s mentor and the grey eminence behind the throne. Samuel, the last Judge of the Israelites, had himself anointed Saul as their first king. In a cantankerous mood at being recalled from the Shades, Samuel foretold the worst, that neither Saul nor his sons would survive the morrow. In the ensuing battle his three sons were slain and Saul, wounded, threw himself on his own sword rather than meet death at the hands of the uncircumcised.

In Rosa’s painting Saul is shown on his knees before Samuel who rises, shrouded, from the earth, while spectral monsters float in the gloom.

Salvator Rosa was a prolific artist who is best known for the creation of a new type of wild and savage landscape. His craggy cliffs, jagged, moss-laden trees, and rough bravura handling create a dank and desolate air that contrasts sharply with the serenity of Claude Lorrain or the classical grandeur of Nicolas Poussin.

This landscape with herders and cattle resting is a relatively early landscape by Rosa.