#salvatorrosa

Human Fragility, Salvator Rosa

Saint Humphrey (Onuphrius), Salvator Rosa, c. 1660, Minneapolis Institute of Art: Paintings

This brooding, wild-looking man is identified by some scholars as Saint Onuphrius, a Christian hermit who spent sixty years alone in the Egyptian wilderness, praying and meditating. Onuphrius is commonly depicted as an elderly, almost disturbed man deep in contemplation, covered by his unkempt hair and beard, and clothed usually in leaves rather than fur. Salvator Rosa—best known as a painter, but also an etcher, poet, musician, and actor—nurtured a bohemian reputation. His unconventional subject matter—witches, bandits, ascetics—and rugged, moody landscapes made him a hero to artists of the Romantic movement more than a century later. Size: 77 1/2 x 46 3/4 in. (196.85 x 118.75 cm) (canvas) Medium: Oil on canvas

Copy after the Figurine, Salvator Rosa, 17th century, Harvard Art Museums: Prints

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Belinda L. Randall from the collection of John Witt Randall

Self-Portrait, Salvator Rosa, ca. 1647, European Paintings

Bequest of Mary L. Harrison, 1921 Size: 39 x 31 1/4 in. (99.1 x 79.4 cm) Medium: Oil on canvas

Polycrates and the Fisherman, Salvator Rosa, 1663, Art Institute of Chicago: European Painting and Sculpture

Salvator Rosa developed a kind of dramatic landscape in which nature is presented as wild, dangerous, and filled with striking effects of light, broken trees, jagged cliffs, and dark grottoes. A native of Naples, Rosa settled in Rome in 1649, producing dramatic works that are regarded as counter-parts to the calm, classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Rosa's dark style is well suited to the subject of this pair of paintings; they recount an episode from the Greco-Persian Wars as told by the ancient Green historian Herodotus. The ruler of the island of Samos, Polycrates, had been blessed with remarkable good fortune. In an effort to ward off a reversal of fortune, he cast a precious ring into the sea, but it was returned to him, swallowed by a fish. His good fortune came to an end, however, when he was entrapped by Oroetus of Sardis and put to death. Wentworth Greene Field Memorial Fund Size: 28 1/2 × 38 13/16 in. (73 × 98.6 cm) Medium: Oil on canvas

Human Fragility, Salvator Rosa