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Salvator Rosa

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In 1615, a boy was born in the house of the surveyor and architect Vitantonio Rosa in the small town of Arenella near Naples. They named him Salvator. From the windows of the dilapidated Casaccio estate there was a wonderful view of Naples and the Vesuvius volcano. Around the village there were many places that enchanted with their beauty: the high rock of San Elmo, the fortress of Borgo di Arenella, built during the reign of Charles V, the hills of Vomero and Posilipo, the island of Capri, the coast of the Gulf of Naples with clear blue waters. All these images will later be found total reflection in the paintings of Salvator Rosa. From an early age future artist on small pieces of paper he tried to capture the pictures of nature that excited him.

Noticing in their son a desire for knowledge, science and art, his parents decided to enroll him in the Jesuit College of the Somasca Congregation, located in Naples. There Salvator Rosa received a varied education: he studied classical literature, studied grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Among other things, I received musical education, learned to play the harp, flute, guitar and even tried to compose small musical works(the serenades-doncellas written by him are known). Some serenades were so popular among the Neapolitans that they sang them day and night under the windows of their lovers.

After some time, Salvator Rosa leaves the college and returns to hometown near Arenella, where he met the local artist Francesco Fracanzano, a former student of the Spanish master of painting Jusepe Ribera, who was extremely popular in those days. Having seen Francesco's paintings, Salvator makes several copies of them, for which he deserves praise from Fracanzano, who was able to discern the talent of a real artist in the young man and advised him to take up painting seriously.
From now on, Rosa draws a lot. In search of new images, he goes traveling through the Abruzzo mountains. At this time, landscapes appear with images of the valleys of Monte Sarkio with an extinct volcano, the grottoes of Palignano, the caves of Otranto, as well as the ruins of the ancient cities of Canusia and Brundisia, the ruins of the arch and the amphitheater of Benevento.

There, in the Abruzzi Mountains and Calabria, the young artist met vagabond robbers, among whom were those who had been expelled from the society of “respectable” people for their freedom-loving, bold thoughts. The appearance of these bandits shocked Salvator so much that he decided to capture them in his album. Their images were then used in later compositions already a mature master (here it is appropriate to recall the engraving from the Capricci suite, which shows the capture of a young man by robbers led by the chieftain), and were also reflected in paintings depicting battle scenes.

The trip was fruitful and significant for the development of the young painter’s landscape creativity. During his travels, he made many sketches of views of Italian nature.

Then transferred to paintings, these landscapes are unusually realistic, alive, and natural. It seems as if nature only fell asleep for a moment. It seems that in a second everything will come to life, a light breeze will blow, the trees will sway, the birds will chirp. In the landscapes of the Rose lies enormous strength, special expression. The figures of people and buildings, being part of a single whole, harmoniously combine with pictures of nature.

Salvator Rosa's first exhibition took place in Naples. One of those who noticed and appreciated the work of the young artist was the famous master monumental painting Giovanni Lanfranco, who bought several landscapes for himself at the exhibition.

In the mid-30s. XVII century Salvator Rosa moves to Rome, the capital of the world visual arts, where baroque and classicism reign. It was in Rome that Rosa became acquainted with the work of such major masters of painting as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Claude Lorrain. Their writing style greatly influenced the formation creative method and artistic and visual techniques of Rose. This is most noticeable in paintings with seascapes. Thus, “Seaport” was written in the best traditions of C. Lorrain. However, the young artist goes further than the teacher. His landscape is natural and concrete: the ideal, rather even abstract, images of Lorrain are replaced here by the figures of ordinary fishermen from Naples.

A few months later, Rosa, seriously ill, leaves the lush and beautiful capital of Italy. He returned back only in 1639. In the summer of this year, a carnival was held in Rome, at which Rosa acted as a traveling actor under the guise of Coviello (a plebeian who had not accepted his fate). And if other Coviello tried their best to be as much like real peasants as possible, then Rosa played his mask perfectly, composing an entire performance and showing him singing and playing the guitar, cheerful, not discouraged under any circumstances and life’s adversities young man. The carnival action took place in Piazza Navona. Salvator Rosa with small group The actors rode out on a cart richly decorated with flowers and green branches. Rose's success was enormous. After the carnival ended, everyone took off their masks. Imagine the surprise of those around him when it was discovered that under the guise of a peasant was none other than Salvator Rosa.

After this, Rosa decided to take up acting. Not far from Porta del Popolo, in one of the empty villas, he opens his own theater. The content of the plays staged under the direction of Rosa is not known to art critics and historians. However, there are facts that speak for themselves: after the premiere of the play, in which the actors ridiculed the court theater under the direction of the then famous architect and sculptor Lorenzo Bernini, someone hired assassins for Rosa. They lay in wait for him near the house. Fortunately, the assassination attempt did not take place - the young man survived. However, due to these circumstances, he was forced to leave Rome again.

Having responded to the invitation of Cardinal Giovanni Carlo Medici, Rosa goes to Florence. Here the artist creates the famous “Self-Portrait”.

The canvas is distinguished by its unique execution. The young man presented in the portrait seems somewhat angular. However, one senses ebullient energy, extraordinary willpower and determination in him. In the painting, a young man leans on a board with an inscription in Latin: “Avt tace, Avt Loqver meliora silentio” (“Either be silent, or say what is better than silence”). This inscription sounds like the end-to-end thought of everything work of art and at the same time as the credo of the young man depicted on the canvas (and therefore the painter himself).

The artist masterfully masters the play of light and shadow. The expressiveness of the image is achieved precisely by the shadow effect, sharply and sometimes even unexpectedly turning into light spots.

It is no coincidence that the figure of a young man is located against the background of the evening sky: the image of a proud, independent young man in dark clothes stands out against a light background, and therefore becomes closer and more understandable to the viewer.
Rosa’s famous satires were created in the same vein, among which a special place is occupied by “Poetry”, “Music”, “Envy”, “War”, “Painting”, which became a kind of anthem of the young writer and artist. Here the author says that painters, being servants of one of the sisters of art - artistic and visual creativity, should be well versed in history, ethnography, and exact sciences. Rose's style in poetry, as well as in painting, manifested itself in its entirety. His poems are energetic, impetuous, emotional and in some places too rude and harsh. They are a kind of opposition to the cutesy and artificially theatrical manner of constructing and sounding poetic forms that developed at that time in literature.

Salvator Rosa remained in Florence until 1654. His house, according to the recollections of his contemporaries, was the place where the most famous people: poet R. Giambatisti, painter and writer F. Baldinucci, scientist E. Torricelli, professor at the University of Pisa G. B. Ricciardi.
One of the central ideas in Baroque art was “to teach the viewer or reader unobtrusively, to teach through beauty.” Following this unspoken rule, artists created canvases, when looking at which the viewer had very specific associations, evoking images of literary heroes. And vice versa, according to the writers of the Baroque period, a poetic work should be such that, after reading it, picturesque, bright and colorful pictures appear before the reader’s eyes.

The work of Salvator Rosa is initial stage formation and development of a new pictorial form - landscape painting. Works constructed in this way connect elements that actually exist in everyday life and fictional.

In 1649, Salvator Rosa left Florence and went to Rome, where he settled on Monte Pincio, located in Piazza della Trinita del Monte. From the windows of the house there was a wonderful view of St. Peter's Cathedral and the Quirinal Hill. Next door to Rose lived the famous artists of those days, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, and not far from the painter’s house was the Villa Medici.

Since the appearance of Salvator Rosa in Florence, the residents of Monte Pincio Street have been divided into two camps. One group was led by an ascetic-looking young man, Nicolas Poussin. Another one, in which there were famous musicians, singers and poets, led by Rose.

Salvator Rosa turned one of the rooms of his house into a workshop. Its walls were decorated with the artist’s original works. The master constantly worked, creating canvases of various content: religious, mythological and historical topics. His credo was - Full time job, improvement of technology. He told everyone that “star fever” (as our contemporaries would say now) can destroy even the strongest and brightest talent. Therefore, even after fame and universal recognition have come to the master, it is necessary to continue to work on oneself and one’s works.

IN late period creativity Salvator Rosa often turns to biblical and ancient stories. For the artist here it turns out to be most important to convey the very spirit of that time and its features. The master is trying, as it were, to revive, to bring back to life everything that existed long before those whose lives served as the source of fabulously beautiful and instructive stories.

There are enough of them famous paintings"Justice Descended to the Shepherds" (1651), "Odysseus and Nausicaa", "Democritus and Protagoras" (1664), " Prodigal son».

The painting “Justice Descending to the Shepherds” was painted based on the famous plot of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”. On the canvas, the viewer sees the goddess Justice, giving the shepherds a sword and scales of justice. The main idea of ​​the painting can be defined as follows: true justice is possible only among ordinary people.

“Odysseus and Nausicaa”, “Democritus and Protagoras” were written by Salvator Rosa after arriving from Venice, where he became acquainted with the paintings of Venetian painters (including Paolo Veronese, in whose best traditions the above works were created).

In the film “The Prodigal Son,” the plot, in comparison with the Gospel parable, turns out to be somewhat simplified and mundane. Thus, the hero is presented as a simple Neapolitan peasant. There is no magnificent surroundings here either: the prodigal son turns to God surrounded by rams and a cow. The huge size of the canvas depicting a slightly modified scene evokes a feeling of mockery and sarcasm about what is considered in society good taste. Rosa appears here as a successor of the ideas of realism, the formation of which begins with the work of Michelangelo da Caravaggio.

In 1656, Salvator Rosa began work on a cycle consisting of 72 engravings, called “Capricci”. The images depicted on these sheets are peasants, robbers, tramps, soldiers. Some details of the engravings are characteristic of Rosa's early work. This suggests that, quite possibly, the cycle included sketches made in childhood, as well as during a trip to the Abruzzi Mountains and Calabria.

The great master of painting, poet, wonderful actor and director of dramatic performances passed away in 1673.

His mentors in the latter were first his brother-in-law, Fr. Francanzone, a student of X. Ribera, then Ribera himself and, finally, the battle painter Agnello Falcone. In addition to these artists, the development of R.'s talent was greatly facilitated by his writing sketches from life without anyone's help. At the age of eighteen, he set off to wander around Apulia and Calabria, fell into the hands of the local robbers and lived for some time among them, studying their types and customs, after which he worked in Naples.

Belonging in the direction of talent to the naturalists of the Neapolitan school of painting, having some affinity with his teachers, Ribera and Falcone, Rosa nevertheless showed, with great diversity in the choice of subjects, a lot of originality in their interpretation. In paintings on historical themes, he knew how to combine the realism of the image with the nobility of an animated composition and with a strong expression of the idea. The best of these paintings is considered to be “The Conspiracy of Catiline” (in the gallery of the Pitti Palace, in Florence). Among other works of Rose in this kind, especially worthy of attention: “Angel and Tobias” and “The Appearance of the Shadow of Samuel to Saul” (in the Louvre Museum, in Paris), “Jonah in Nineveh” and “Cadmus and Minerva” (in the Copenhagen gallery), "The Crucifixion" (in the Brunswick Museum), "Prometheus" (in the Hague Gallery), "The Prodigal Son", "Ulysses and Nausicaa" and "Democritus and Protagoras" (in Imperial Hermitage) and some others.

The portraits by Rosa are very characteristic and expressive, which suggests their similarity with the faces posing in front of him. In those landscapes that came out from under his brush during his stay in Florence, such as, for example, in the large seaside view located in the Colonna Gallery in Rome, painting connoisseurs see the influence of Claude Lorrain. In other paintings of this kind, a certain artificiality and lethargy are noticeable. But Rose is an excellent, completely original master, imbued with poetry when he depicts harsh mountains, wild gorges, dense forest thickets, especially when he paints on canvases of small size. There are many of his paintings in which the landscape plays minor role, and the main content consists of human figures - mostly the figures of soldiers and robbers. Such paintings can be seen in the Imperial Hermitage (“Soldiers Playing Dice”), in Vienna, Munich, The Hague and other galleries. Finally, Rosa wrote very beautifully complex paintings battles, a wonderful example of which is in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Regarding the coloring of R., it must be said that it is not at all distinguished by great brilliance, but is extremely pleasant in its warmth and consistency of chiaroscuro.

In the last years of his life, Rosa was diligently engaged in engraving. In total, he executed 86 etchings of his own composition, many of which can be considered the best creatures artist and in good prints are very much appreciated by print lovers, such as, for example, “St. William the Hermit”, “Plato and His Disciples”, “Warrior Sitting on a Hill”, etc.

Rosa composed several dramas, in which he sometimes acted, as well as a number of caustic satires.

Biographies of this versatile artist were published by Fr. Baldinucci (new Venetian edition, 1830), Fiorillo (with the appendix of R.'s satire; "Poetic Art", Göttingen, 1785) and C. Cantu (Milan, 1844).

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Rosa Salvator(20 June 1615 – 15 March 1673) Italian artist, engraver, poet and musician.

Rose born in Renella, near Naples, was raised in a monastery and was preparing to take holy orders, but soon Salvator felt an irresistible attraction to art and began to study first music, and then painting. The mentors were first his brother-in-law, Fr. Francanzone, a student of X. Ribera, then Ribera himself and, finally, the battle painter Aniello Falcone. In addition to these artists, talent development Salvator This was greatly facilitated by his writing sketches from nature without any help. Eighteen years old Salvator set off to wander around Apulia and Calabria, fell into the hands of the local robbers and lived for some time among them, studying their types and customs, after which he worked in Naples. In 1634 he moved to Rome, where, thanks to two paintings: "Transience human life" and "Goddess of happiness, squandering her gifts on the unworthy," gained fame. From 1650 to 1660. Rosa Salvator worked in Florence, at the court of Grand Duke J.-C. Medici, from time to time visiting Rome. Belonging in the direction of the naturalists of the Neapolitan school of painting, having some affinity with his teachers, Ribera and Falcone, Salvator With a large selection of subjects, he made an original interpretation. In historical paintings, he knew how to combine the realism of the image with the nobility of an animated composition. In landscapes that came out from under the brush Salvator during his stay in Florence, art connoisseurs see the influence Claude Lorrain . Salvator is an excellent, completely original master, imbued with poetry when he depicts harsh mountains, wild gorges, dense forest thickets, especially on small canvases. There are paintings in which the landscape plays a secondary role, and the main content is made up of human figures, be it the figure of a soldier or a robber. In the last years of his life Salvator hard at work engraving. In total, he executed 86 etchings of his own composition, many of which can be considered among the artist’s best creations and, in good prints, are highly valued by print lovers.

Self-Portrait (Allegory of Silence)
National Gallery, London
As if warning, the artist looks at us over his shoulder with a sad and contemptuous expression on his face. In fact, the inscription on the sign he holds in his hands reads: “Be silent if what you want to say is no better than silence.” The harsh meaning of this dark self-portrait is further enhanced by the artist's dark cloak and black hat, giving him an almost sinister appearance. It looms menacingly before us against the backdrop of a strange, horizonless sky. Rosa was strongly influenced by the harsh realism of Jusepe Ribera, who worked in Naples from 1616. Salvator Rosa (20.6.1615–15.3.1673) was born in the vicinity of Naples, in the village of Arenella. Rosa's father Vito Antonio was a builder or land surveyor, her mother Giulia Greco was the daughter of the artist Vito Greco and the sister of the painter Domenico Antonio Greco. Rosa was sent to the Jesuit college of the Somasca congregation in Naples, where he received good liberal arts education, studying classic literature, logic, rhetoric, history. From his youth he was interested in music, playing the harp, flute, guitar, and composing serenades. Salvator was actually self-taught, formed in the circle of masters of the Neapolitan school. At first he copied the works of Francesco Fracanzano, whose works were popular with customers and were even sent to the Spanish court. Then he studied in the workshop of Agnello Falcone, an excellent draftsman and battle painter.
Salvator Rosa was formed in the Neapolitan environment not only as an artist, but also as a “freethinker.” The south of Italy was the birthplace of such outstanding personalities in the history of the country, like Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella, Cesare Vanini. These brave men defended their people, who were suffering the oppression of foreigners, rebelled against the terror of the Inquisition during the Counter-Reformation, which intensified in the second half of the 16th century, and dreamed of social equality of the people. Rosa's teachers, Agnello Falcone and Francesco Fracanzano, were among the followers of these “freethinkers”; both of them ended up in the ranks of the defenders of Tommaso Agnello, who led the uprising of the lower classes against the nobles (the trade and financial elite of the city) and the barons (large landowners). The heroes of Rosa's paintings will be the poor - fishermen, loaders, lazzaroni tramps, whom he saw hiding from the pursuit of the viceroy's troops, and sometimes engaging in battle with them and striking fear into the nobles with their unexpected attacks and robberies.

Forest landscape
One day, the exhibited paintings of Rosa were noticed by Giovanni Lanfranco, a famous master of monumental Baroque painting who worked in Naples. He even bought several of his works. In 1635, Salvator Rosa left his hometown and moved to Rome, where his eventful life began. From 1640 to 1649 he lived in Florence, and then throughout the subsequent period (1649–1673) in Rome.
In Rome, Rosa found a wealthy patron in the person of a certain Girolamo Mercuri, a Neapolitan, majordomo to Cardinal Brancacci of Viterbo. The Cardinal, noticing the artist's talent, took him from the house of Mercury. For the residence of the Archbishop of Viterbo, Rosa created an altarpiece in the Church of San Sisto.

Having left Rome for some time, Salvator Rosa nevertheless continued to exhibit his works at the Roman exhibition of members of the Virtuosi of the Pantheon congregation (created in 1543), held annually on August 29, in honor of the Day of St. John the Baptist (San Giovanni Decolato) in the courtyard of the Church of San Bartolomeo dei Padri Bergamaschi. In 1639, Rosa's painting Titius achieved great success at this exhibition. Much later, in the 1650s, Salvator Rosa would once again amaze the Roman public on the Feast of San Giovanni Decolato. His painting Fortuna (1658–1659) will become a scandalous sensation, for which they will try to bring the artist to trial by the Inquisition.

"Allegory of Fortune" ca. 1658-59
Getty Museum. Los Angeles Only the intervention of Cardinal Chigi will save him from prison. Rose depicted the goddess of Fate distributing coins, precious stones, books from a cornucopia, which go to pigs, a bull, a donkey, sheep, a ram (at her feet lies a palette, therefore, this is an allegory of a bad painter), and not to worthy people. Fortuna's face resembled a public woman, to whom a noble clergyman was attracted. This was a bold hint at the injustice of distributing honors to people who are unworthy, but who earn success through flattery, deceit, and sycophancy.

Rose's landscapes and poems carry an echo of the Neapolitan poetic tradition, they seem a little rough compared to the melodic and sweet style of the Neapolitan poet, Rosa's contemporary J.B. Marino, who gained fame at European courts, or the landscapes of Nicolas Poussin with their ennobled and ideally calm nature. The imagery of Rosa’s poetry is far from the descriptions of the “gardens of bliss” in Marino’s lyrics. Also, the artist’s landscape painting, in which his rich imagination is subtly combined with field observations, gives rise to a completely different emotional feeling than the landscapes of Poussin’s Roman Campania. This is a special emotional feeling in XIX century will be called a “romantic” perception of nature.

The figures of wanderers or warriors among mountain gorges, travelers on the road, fishermen, loaders, card players on the seashore evoke associations in the canvases of Salvator Rosa not with literary images, as in the paintings of Claude Lorrain, who loved to place them on stage, among the scenes in the form of trees or architectural buildings, figures of characters from the works of Virgil, Ovid, from the Old Testament. Nature, extraordinary and mysterious, always dominates Rose’s landscapes.

An Angel appears to Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert.
The success of his landscapes with his clients, apparently, was partly a burden for Salvator Rosa. In the satire “Painting” he wrote with sarcasm: “With grave amazement... I reflect on the fact that almost every artist loses his talent when he begins to gain success, because he sees how he is honored and the things he painted easily find a place for themselves... Therefore, he no longer bothers himself with excessive work and, completely lazy, happily turns into a donkey.” However, the artist became the creator of true masterpieces landscape painting XVII century. One of his most poetic early landscapes is the canvas “Old Bridge” (c. 1640).

"Landscape with a Destroyed Bridge" ca. 1640.
Oil on canvas 106X127 cm.
Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
In Rome, Salvator Rosa turned to painting battle scenes.

The battle of Christians with the Turks. 1650s In his large panoramic compositions, he placed the scene of a frantic battle of warriors in the foreground, and the background consisted of mountains, ruins of temples, towers, and palaces. In the satire “War” (1647), the artist expressed his attitude to the uprising: “Look at the high courage with which the fisherman, despicable, barefoot, a worm, received so many rights in one day! Look at such a high soul in a low one, who, in order to save his homeland... plunged the highest heads into nothing... Are ancient values ​​not renewed if today a despised fisherman gives an example to the kings...” Drawings by Salvator Rosa depicting figures of horsemen and fragments of battle scenes have been preserved. The corpus of his drawings as a whole is not very large, although he is considered a prolific draftsman among the Baroque masters.

Fragment of an engraving from the Rose collection
His drawings include “The Rider on a Fallen Horse”, “Saint George Slaying the Dragon”, and the engraving “Jason and the Dragon” (made for the canvas of the same name based on a scene from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”). And sometimes the images of his drawings are full of lyricism (“Apollo and Daphne”), keen observation (“Lute Player under a Tree”, “Two Figures in a Landscape”, “Fisherman”).

Allegory of lies
Two outstanding works by Salvator Rosa were created in Florence - the already mentioned “Self-Portrait” (circa 1648) and Allegory of Lies (1640s). They allow us to judge his worldview in the period 1640–1649, his difficult relationship with a world full of theatrical props and not sincerity. Rose often painted his reflection in the mirror. In the painting “Allegory of Lies” the artist looks older than in the London “Self-Portrait”.

“Self-portrait” Oil on canvas, 99 x 79 cm.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY. In Florence it was written " Portrait of a man"(1640s). Apparently, this is also a self-portrait, in which Rosa captured himself in the costume of Pascariello, one of his favorite commedia dell'arte characters. Researchers of his work also see similarities with the artist in the image of the ancient mathematician, designer and philosopher Arkita, who is depicted holding a mechanical dove that he designed (“Arkita, philosopher from Tarentum”).
Among the portraits of Salvator Rosa, it is worth noting the “Portrait of a Man” (1640s), which depicts a low-class man, a tramp or a peasant.

"Portrait of a Man" 1640s
Oil on canvas, 78 x 65 cm.
State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg. With his rags and a bandage on his head, he resembles the robbers, whose figures the artist liked to introduce into his landscapes (“Robbers in the Cave”). Convincingly conveyed female character and in “Portrait of Lucretia,” the artist’s beloved. Rosa was close to the Florentine Lucrezia until the end of his days, calling her very respectfully “Signora Lucrezia” in his letters.

Lukreciya.
During his stay in Florence, and then in Rome, Rosa created works in the genre of the so-called “diableries” or “stregonerie” (from Italian - stregonerie), that is, scenes of witchcraft and devilry.

"Demons and the Hermit."

Witches at their Incantations ("Sabbath of Witches") Appeal to similar plots depicting witches, tools of witchcraft (old books, astronomical instruments, symbolic objects) was widespread in European painting XVII century (“Human frailty”, 1657; “Self-portrait with a skull, 1656–1675”). In the first painting, a seated woman with a child on her lap is an allegory of motherhood. The child writes on a scroll, but his pen is guided by the hand of death, which is personified by a winged, creepy skeleton.

“Human fragility” Oil on canvas, 199 x 134 cm.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Herma, crowned with a wreath of cypress branches (the tree of cemeteries and sorrow), an obelisk (symbol of memory), a crystal sphere on which a woman sits (symbol of the fate of life), an owl (bird of the night), another baby standing in a cradle, lighting the end of the yarn at the tip a spinning wheel (a symbol of the frailty of life, already predetermined for a baby in the cradle), two knives (an emblem of forced separation), an inscription on a scroll ("conception is a sin, birth is torment, life is tedious work, death is a fatal inevitability") from a famous poem, lines which in the canzone he sent to the artist J.B. Ricciardi; Rose's signature on the blade of the knife (an allegory of separation from his early deceased son) - this entire complex set of symbols reveals the deep tragedy of his experiences.

"Democritus in Meditation" c. 1650
Oil on canvas, 344 x 214 cm.
State Museum of Art. Copenhagen

« Seascape with towers"after 1645
Oil on canvas, 102 x 127 cm.
Palatine Gallery (Palazzo Pitti), Florence.
In Florence, Salvator Rosa continues to create battle scenes and paint landscapes (Landscape with Mercury and a Woodcutter, ca. 1650; “Landscape with Apollo and the Sibyl of Cumae” (1650s), “Landscape with the Sermon of John the Baptist,” 1660s).

John the baptist preaching in the wilderness.
At the end of the 1640s and in the 1650s, classicist tendencies intensified in the work of Salvator Rosa. He is trying to master the techniques of “high style” painting, turning to subjects from ancient history and mythology, to biblical themes. However, it is difficult for the artist to achieve a rejection of the genre interpretation of staffage, so the didactics with which the moral meaning of the plots is presented sometimes looks rude. This applies to such paintings as “The Calling of Cincinnatus”, “Grove of Philosophers” (Landscape with Three Philosophers),

The philosophers wood “Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness,” written before moving to Rome. Turning to the historical genre, to the stylistics of the “high style” was contrary to the artist’s talent, so he was not always able to achieve the desired success and recognition along this path.
In 1660 Salvator Rosa moved to Rome.
More and more often, Salvator Rosa turns to stories from ancient history and mythology, carrying ethical and moral meaning (“Prodigal Son” and “Astraea leaves the earth”, 1660s). The ideas of Stoicism are especially clearly expressed in the latter. The heroes of Rose's works are Diogenes, the Greek Cynic philosopher; Saint Paul the Eremite, hermit, Christian saint, the first of the hermits of Egypt to choose a solitary life for the sake of reflection; Democritus, the greatest ancient logician, predecessor of Aristotle.

Odysseus and Nausicaa

Democritus and Protagoras Rosa tries to philosophically comprehend history in the paintings “The Death of Atilius Regulus” and “The Conspiracy of Catiline”, and the engravings “Belisarius” and “Laomidont”. He turns to images legendary history(“Saul at the Witch of Endor”), creates his series of etchings “Capricci” (1656) and, finally, writes his famous canvas “Prometheus”, full of deep thoughts about the retribution for virtue and the injustice of the world.

Prometheus The painting “The Dream of Aeneas” is closely related to Roman themes.

"The Dream of Aeneas" NY. Metropolitan. Rose puts philosophical moralizing meaning into the canvas historical genre"Alexander the Great and Diogenes". The poor Stoic philosopher who dared to say to the greatest of the generals: “Stand back and don’t block the sun for me!” looks like an eccentric old man who entered into a conversation with a powerful warrior.

"The Prodigal Son" 1651-55
Oil on canvas, 254 x 201 cm.
State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg.
The canvas The Prodigal Son is one of the artist’s masterpieces. In this work, Salvator Rosa appears as one of the most obvious and original heirs of Caravaggism, which during this period was already gradually losing its position.
In his later years, Salvator Rosa created many drawings. Among them are caricatures of people who visited his house, romanticized images of himself, influxes of fantasy - reproductions of figures from the Capricci series, often transferred to paintings. After 1664, Rosa no longer turned to engraving due to his sharply deteriorating eyesight.
In 1668, at the next exhibition on the day of San Giovanni Decolato, Salvator Rosa exhibited the painting The Spirit of Samuel, called to Saul by the Sorceress of Endor. The dramatic plot in the painting of the “high” genre acquired a satirical, almost farcical interpretation in the artist’s interpretation.

“The appearance of the shadow of the prophet Samuel to King Saul” 1668
Oil on canvas, 275 x 191 cm.
Louvre. Paris. Salvatore Rosa died on March 15, 1673 in Rome from dropsy. Before his death, the artist married his mistress Lucretia, with whom he lived for many years and raised two sons.

"Lucretia as poetry" 1640-1641
Oil on canvas 1,040 x 910 cm.
Wadsworth Atheneum Art Museum. HartfordMajor Italian Baroque master Salvator Rosa had a significant influence on the development Italian painting. Under the influence of his art, the talent of Magnasco, Ricci and a number of other masters was formed. The art of Salvatore Rosa also inspired painters of the Romantic era.

"Pythagoras and the Fisherman" 1662
Oil on canvas, 132 x 188 cm.
National Museum. Berlin

"Rocky landscape with hunter and warrior" c. 1670
Oil on canvas, 142 x 192 cm.
Louvre. Paris

Landscape with Mercury and the Dishonest Woodman

86.

"Heroic Battle" 1652-64
Oil on canvas, 214 x 351 cm.
Louvre. Paris

An angel leads St. Peter out

Diogenes throwing away his drinking cup.1651

“Jason bewitches the dragon” version 2

"Evening Landscape" 1640-43
Oil on canvas, 99 x 151 cm.
Private collection

"River Landscape with Apollo and Sibyl" c. 1655
Oil on canvas, 174 x 259 cm.
Royal collection. Windsor

"Jason Bewitches the Dragon" ca. 1665-1670
Museum fine arts. Montreal

“Warrior” Oil on canvas
University Gallery, Siena

“Portrait of a Philosopher” Oil on canvas, 119 x 93 cm.
Private collection

"Pythagoras comes out of underworld» 1662
Kimbel Art Museum, Texas Fort Worth

"Diogenes Casting away his Cup" 1650s
Oil on canvas, 219 x 148 cm.
Private collection

Heraclitus and Democritus

Self-portrait of Salvator Rosa

"Jason Bewitches the Dragon"

Democritus

Being a master of the 17th century, Salvator Rosa in his work was able to deeply reveal one of the main features of Baroque aesthetics - the synthesis of the tragic and the comic. In satires and on canvases, he spoke about the picture of the true “theater of life” of his era, made readers and spectators feel the depth of his dramatic gift and the inherent subtle irony in assessing the imperfections of life.
Based on the book by E.D. Fedotova “Salvator Rosa” (series “Masters of Painting. Foreign artists") http://www.art-catalog.ru/article.php?id_article=568

Rosa Salvatore (1615–1673)
Italian painter, graphic artist, poet and musician. Born in the small town of Arnella near Naples in the family of a land surveyor. From childhood he was sent to be raised in the college of the Jesuit congregation of Somaska. The study of Latin, Holy Scripture, Italian literature, and ancient history at the Jesuit College helped Salvatore Rosa in the future, when he became a painter. He studied painting with his brother-in-law, the artist F. Fracanziano, as well as with his uncle, the artist A. D. Greco, possibly visited the workshop of H. Ribera, and was acquainted with the famous Neapolitan battle painter A. Falcone, one of the early masters of this genre.

Diogenes' Choice, 1650s
Private collection

Jason taming the dragon, 1640s
Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal

Self-portrait
National Gallery, London

As if warning, the artist looks at us over his shoulder with a sad and contemptuous expression on his face. In fact, the inscription on the sign he holds in his hands reads: “Be silent if what you want to say is no better than silence.” The harsh meaning of this dark self-portrait is further enhanced by the artist's dark cloak and black hat, giving him an almost sinister appearance. It looms menacingly before us against the backdrop of a strange, horizonless sky. Rosa was strongly influenced by the harsh realism of Jusepe Ribera, who worked in Naples from 1616. Rosa's own famous "violent manner" was evident even in his poetic landscapes. It was this quality that became especially important for romantic landscape painters of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Rosa was not only a painter, but also a graphic artist, poet, musician and actor.

The work of this talented painter is associated with the traditions of the Neapolitan school. The name of Salvatore Rosa is surrounded by legends, as he was distinguished by his rebellious disposition, courage, and great picturesque temperament. He was not only a painter and engraver, but also a poet, musician, actor, and the passion of his nature was evident in everything. The artist’s painterly talent was realized in landscape, portrait, battle scenes, paintings of the historical genre.

He worked in Naples (until 1635), Rome and Florence (1640–1648) as the court painter of Giovanni Carlo Medici, the future cardinal. An exponent of pre-romantic tendencies in Italian Baroque painting, Rose in paintings on biblical and mythological themes (“The Prodigal Son”, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; “The Dream of Aeneas”, Metropolitan Museum), graphics (etching “The Game of Tritons”), cavalry scenes fights (“Combat”, pen drawing, Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig), “stormy” landscapes with views of wild, sometimes fantastic areas (“Forest Landscape with Three Philosophers”, Art Gallery, Dresden; “Landscape with a Bridge”, Pitti Gallery , Florence) glorifies the escape of man into the bosom of nature, and opposes the generally accepted norms of academic art of the 17th century. The expressive and gloomy atmosphere of Rosa’s works is created with the help of sharp light and shadow contrasts, a free style of writing, and a gloomy, brownish-leaden coloring.

The “Self-Portrait” (London, National Gallery) dates back to his time in Florence. Rose is depicted wearing a cloak draped over her shoulder. The romanticization of the image is emphasized by the somewhat theatrical attire, but the artist managed to convey the passion of nature, her vulnerability, and the irony that comes through in her gaze. The Latin inscription on the portrait: “Be silent, if what you want to say is no better than silence” - expresses the state of the artist, who apparently experienced deep disappointment from contact with injustice. The theme of “Self-Portrait” is continued by the painting “Allegory of Lies” (Florence, Pitti). Perhaps the model for the image of the man who took off the tragic mask and pointed at it was Rose himself.

This is an example of an allegory that has deep moral overtones, which expresses thoughts about the artist’s work and his position in society. It is possible that Rosa also depicted himself in the painting “Portrait of a Bandit” (St. Petersburg, Hermitage), which is a work mentioned in 17th-century sources. The image of this man is full of liveliness and wit, and his clothes are reminiscent of the costume of Pascariello, the hero of the commedia dell'arte mask.

In 1649, Salvatore Rosa moved to Rome, seeking to free himself from court service. He refuses offers to work at the courts of Austria, Sweden and France. With witty satires, the artist irritates those on whom rich orders depend. His canvas “Fortune” (London, Marlborough Gallery) depicting animals, in the images of which influential people recognized themselves, almost brought the wrath of the artist to the pope himself.

The circle of Salvatore Rosa’s ill-wishers has increased, as evidenced by the artist’s satirical painting “Envy.” After a quarrel with the venerable Lorenzo Bernini and other famous painters, the artist, despite his acquired fame, was refused admission to the Roman Academy of St. Luke. In this regard, Salvatore Rosa founded the “Academy of the Hurt” (Academia degli percossi). Its members and frequent guests Roses became famous artists, poets, musicians, scientists. Among them were the mathematician Torricelli, the composer Cesti, and the philologists Carlo Dati and Valerio Chimentelli.

Ancient history and mythology still allows the artist Salvatore Rosa to put forward ethical issues that concern him in his works. In the canvas “Democritus and Protagoras” (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) Rose talks about wisdom common man, which amazed the great philosopher, who made him his student. The film “Odysseus and Nausicaa” (ibid.) is about the nobility of the act of the ancient princess who helped the shipwrecked Odysseus. The ideal image of a fighter for republican virtues is embodied by the artist in the painting “The Conspiracy of Catiline” (Florence, private collection), and in the painting “Saul at the Witch of Endor” (Paris, Louvre) the biblical story is intended, not without grotesquerie, but on the contrary, to debunk the lofty ideas about a bad ruler .

In the 1660s, Rosa copied his paintings in engravings, sometimes creating independent historical and allegorical compositions (the allegory “The Genius of Salvator Rosa”). Back in 1656, the artist became interested in the technique of etching and executed the “Capricci” series. As in his paintings, its heroes are tramps, soldiers, bandits, shepherds. They are depicted either in real situations or in theatrical poses and look either as life-like characters or as actors from costume scenes. In them, Rosa’s inherent fantasy and ability to figuratively synthesize everything that struck his imagination in reality are especially clearly visible.

Salvatore Rosa died on March 15, 1673 in Rome from dropsy. Before his death, the artist married his mistress Lucretia, with whom he lived for many years and raised two sons. The great master of the Italian Baroque, Salvator Rosa, had a significant influence on the development of Italian painting. Under the influence of his art, the talent of Magnasco, Ricci and a number of other masters was formed. The art of Salvatore Rosa also inspired painters of the Romantic era.