Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and
printmaker born (June 20) in 1615 best known for being a proto-Romantic.
Initially, his father had wanted Rosa to become either a priest of lawyer, and
entered him into the convent of the Somaschi Fathers. Rosa, however, felt that
art was his calling and began secretly working under the tutelage of his uncle
to learn about painting. He then moved on to study under his brother-in-law who
was, in fact, a pupil of Jusepe de Ribera, an eminent Spanish Tenebrist painter,
before coming under the apprenticeship of either Aneillo Falcone or Ribera
himself. It was during his apprenticeship that his father died, leaving the
family destitute and Rosa without financial support.
Rosa earned money by selling his paintings cheaply
through private dealers as he moved back and forth between Rome, Naples, and
Florence. During this time he began producing the forerunners of Romantic paintings.
Picturesque views of mountains and beaches were among his early landscapes for
which he became well known. As well as painting, Rosa also wrote multiple
satirical plays which gained him both favor and enemies, including Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, the sculptor who originally designed the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome.
Rosa continued to paint and write until his final days,
having fallen ill with dropsy, and he died in 1673. His legacy was, most
prominently, the beginning stages of romantic painting, evinced by the
picturesque works of J.M.W. Turner, who arrived in the art world about a
century later. It is almost poetic, in fact, that Rosa should be remembered as
one of the fathers of the romantic painting style, as his birthday just so
happens to fall on the first day of the summer equinox. If you’d like an up
close and personal example of Rosa’s work, especially today, the GMOA happens
to have one of his paintings within the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Collection.
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| Salvator Rosa--Saint Simon the Apostle |
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