Salvator Rosa
Rebellious proto-Romantic Baroque landscape painter
Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet, and printmaker, who was active in Naples, Rome, and Florence. As a painter, he has been described as "unorthodox and extravagant" as well as being a "perpetual rebel" and a proto-Romantic. Rosa was born in Arenella, at that time in the outskirts of Naples, on either June 20 or July 21, 1615. His mother was Giulia Greca Rosa, a member of one of the Greek families of Sicily. His father, Vito Antonio de Rosa, a land surveyor, urged his son to become a lawyer or a priest, and entered him into the convent of the Somaschi Fathers. Yet Salvator showed a preference for the arts and secretly worked with his maternal uncle Paolo Greco to learn about painting. He soon transferred himself to the tutelage of his brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzano, a pupil of Ribera, and afterward to either Aniello Falcone, a contemporary of Domenico Gargiulo, or to Ribera. During Rosa’s lifetime his work inspired followers such as Giovanni Ghisolfi, but his most lasting influence was on the later development of romantic and picturesque traditions within painting. Eighteenth-century artists influenced by Rosa include Alessandro Magnasco, Andrea Locatelli, Giovanni Paolo Panini and Marco Ricci. As Wittkower states, it is in his landscapes, not his grand historical or religious dramas, that Rosa truly expresses his innovative abilities most graphically. Rosa’s reputation and influence waned in the nineteenth century; when his Monks Fishing was displayed in Dulwich in 1843 it was criticized by John Ruskin as telling "unmitigated falsehoods" and containing "laws of nature set at open defiance". Since the 1960s, Rosa’s work has received renewed attention from scholars.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Francesco Fidanza Student
Fellow student
Artworks by this artist
- Glaucus and Scylla circa 1661
- Three Figures around a globe 1615-73
- Mountainous forest landscape with resting warriors
- Soldier Holding His Lance with Both Hands 1656 - 1657
- Saint Humphrey (Onuphrius) c. 1660
- half-length study of bearded nude male figure, and a man and woman with donkey 1615-73
- The Founding of Thebes 1630 - 1661
- Nude in Contemplation, Seated on a Rocky Ledge 1656 - 1657
- Young Man Viewing a Painting 1656 - 1657
- Monks Fishing
- Soldier, Standing, Looking at the Ground 1656 - 1657
- Two Standing Soldiers and Six other Figures 1615-73
- Figure Studies (verso) c. 1640-1649
- slight sketch of head and shoulders of man in lead pencil 1615-73
- Drawings of Classical Figures (mid-17th century) 2
- St. Paul, Hermit 1615-73
- Man with Fishing Net and Two Other Figures 1656 - 1657
- Figures Gathered around a tree 1615-73
- Three Soldiers, One Seated on a Square Block of Stone 2 1656 - 1657
- Diogenes Casting Away His Cup