Salvator Rosa
Encyclopedia
Salvator Rosa was an Italian
Baroque
painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic
.
, in the outskirts of Naples
, on either June 20 or July 21, 1615. 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 Francanzano
, a pupil of Ribera, and afterwards to either Aniello Falcone
, a contemporary of Domenico Gargiulo
, or Ribera himself. Some sources claim he spent time living with roving bandits. At the age of seventeen he lost his father; his mother was destitute with at least five children, and Salvator found himself without financial support.
He continued apprenticeship with Falcone, helping him complete his battlepiece canvases. In that studio, it is said that Lanfranco
took notice of his work, and advised him to relocate to Rome, where he stayed from 1634–36.
Returning to Naples, he began painting haunting landscapes, overgrown with vegetation, or jagged beaches, mountains, and caves. Rosa was among the first to paint "romantic" landscapes, with a special turn for scenes of picturesque
often turbulent and rugged scenes peopled with shepherds, brigands, seamen, soldiers. These early landscapes were sold cheaply through private dealers.
He returned to Rome in 1638–39, where he was housed by Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio
, bishop of Viterbo. For the Chiesa Santa Maria della Morte in Viterbo, Rosa painted his first and one of his few altarpieces with an Incredulity of Thomas.
While Rosa had a facile genius at painting, he pursued a wide variety of arts: music, poetry, writing, etching
, and acting. In Rome, he befriended Pietro Testa
and Claude Lorraine. During a Roman carnival play he wrote and acted in a masque, in which his character bustled about Rome distributing satirical prescriptions for diseases of the body and more particularly of the mind. In costume, he inveighed against the farcical comedies acted in the Trastevere
under the direction of Bernini.
While his plays were successful, this also gained him powerful enemies among patrons and artists, including Bernini himself, in Rome. By late 1639, he had to relocate to Florence, where he stayed for 8 years. He had been in part, invited by a Cardinal Giancarlo de Medici. Once there, Rosa sponsored a combination of studio and salon of poets, playwrights, and painters—the so called Accademia dei Percossi ("Academy of the Stricken"). To the rigid art milieu of Florence, he introduced his canvases of wild landscapes; while influential, he gathered few true pupils. Another painter poet, Lorenzo Lippi
, shared with Rosa the hospitality of the cardinal and the same circle of friends. Lippi encouraged him to proceed with the poem Il Malmantile Racquistato. He was well acquainted also with Ugo and Giulio Maffei, and housed with them in Volterra
, where he wrote four satires Music, Poetry, Painting and War. About the same time he painted his own portrait, now in the National Gallery, London
.
In 1646 he returned to Naples, and appears to have sympathized with the 1648 insurrection of Masaniello, as a passage in one of his satires suggests. His actual participation in the revolt is dubious. It is alleged that Rosa, along with other painters—Coppola
, Paolo Porpora
, Domenico Gargiulo
, Pietro dal Po, Marzio Masturzo
, the two Vaccari
and Cadogna—all under the captaincy of Aniello Falcone
, formed the Compagnia della Morte, whose mission it was to hunt down Spaniards in the streets, not sparing even those who had sought religious asylum. He painted a portrait of Masaniello—probably from reminiscence rather than life. On the approach of Don Juan de Austria
, the blood-stained Compagnia dispersed.
Other tales recount that from there he escaped and joined with brigands in the Abruzzi. Although this incident cannot be conveniently dove-tailed into known dates of his career, in 1846 a famous romantic ballet
about this story titled Catarina was produced in London
by the choreographer Jules Perrot
and composer Cesare Pugni
).
He returned to stay in Rome in 1649. Here he increasingly focused on large scale paintings, tackling themes and stories unusual for seventeenth-century painters. These included Democritus amid the Tombs, The Death of Socrates, Regulus in the Spiked Cask (these two are now in England), Justice Quitting the Earth and the Wheel of Fortune. This last work, with its implication that too often foolish artists received rewards that did not match their talent, raised a storm of controversy. Rosa, endeavouring at conciliation, published a description of its meaning (probably softened down not a little from the real facts); nonetheless he was nearly arrested. It was about this time that Rosa wrote his satire named Babylon.
His criticisms of Roman art culture won him several enemies. An allegation arose that his published satires were not his own, but stolen. Rosa indignantly denied the charges, but one must admit that the satires deal so extensively and with such ready manipulation of classical names, allusions and anecdotes, that one is rather at a loss to fix upon the period of his busy career at which Rosa could possibly have imbued his mind with such a multitude of semi-erudite details. It may perhaps be legitimate to assume literary friends in Florence and Volterra
coached him about the topic of his satires, the compositions of which remained nonetheless his own. To confute his detractors he now wrote the last of the series, entitled Envy.
Among the pictures of his last years were the admired Battlepiece and Saul and the Witch of Endor (latter perhaps final work) now in Louvre
, painted in 40 days, full of longdrawn carnage, with ships burning in the offing; Pythagoras and the Fishermen; and the Oath of Catiline (Pitti Palace).
While occupied with a series of satirical portraits, to be closed by one of himself, Rosa was assailed by dropsy. He died a half year later. In his last moments he married a Florentine named Lucrezia, who had borne him two sons, one of them surviving him, and he died in a contrite frame of mind. He lies buried in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
, where a portrait of him has been set up. Salvator Rosa, after struggles of his early youth, had successfully earned a handsome fortune.
He was a significant etcher, with a highly popular and influential series of small prints of soldiers, and a number of larger and very ambitious subjects.
, and created brooding, melancholic fantasies, awash in ruins and brigands. By the eighteenth century, the contrasts between Rosa and artists such as Claude was much remarked upon. A 1748 poem by James Thompson, The Castle of Indolence, illustrated this: Whate'er Lorraine light touched with softening hue/ Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin
drew. He influenced Gaspar Dughet's landscape style.
A recent exhibit of Turner's work, at the Prado museum in Madrid, notes the influence Rosa had on Turner, in his landscapes. In fact it is reported that Turner consciously wanted to be associated with the work of Rosa. Another exhibition of Rosa's work, held at London's Dulwich Picture Gallery
in 2010, emphasised the strangeness of Rosa's painting and themes, showing his enthusiasm for 'bandits, wilderness and magic'.
In a time when artists where often highly constrained by patrons, Rosa had a plucky streak of independence, which celebrated the special role of the artist. "Our wealth must consist in things of the spirit, and in contenting ourselves with sipping, while others gorge themselves in prosperity". He refused to paint on commission or to agree on a price beforehand, and he chose his own subjects. He painted in order "to be carried away by the transports of enthusiasm and use my brushes only when I feel myself rapt". This tempestuous spirit became the darling of British Romantics.
The satires of Salvator Rosa deserve more attention than they have generally received. There are, however, two recent books taking account of them—by Cesareo, 1892, and Cartelli, 1899. The satires, though considerably spread abroad during his lifetime, were not published until 1719. They are all in terza rima
, written without much literary correctness, but remarkably spirited, pointed and even brilliant. They are slashingly denunciatory, and from this point of view too monotonous in treatment. Rosa here appears as a very severe castigator of all ranks and conditions of men, not sparing the highest, and as a champion of the poor and down-trodden, and of moral virtue and Catholic faith. It seems odd that a man who took so free a part in the pleasures and diversions of life should be so ruthless to the ministers of these.
The satire on Music exposes the insolence and profligacy of musicians, and the shame of courts and churches in encouraging them. Poetry dwells on the pedantry, imitativeness, adulation, affectation a and indecency of poets—also their poverty, and the neglect with which they were treated; and there is a very vigorous sortie against oppressive governors and aristocrats. Tasso
's glory is upheld; Dante
is spoken of as obsolete, and Ariosto as corrupting.
Painting inveighs against the pictorial treatment of squalid subjects, such as beggars (though Rosa must surely himself have been partly responsible for this misdirection of the art), against the ignorance and lewdness of painters, and their tricks of trade, and the gross indecorum of painting sprawling half-naked saints of both sexes. War (which contains a eulogy of Masaniello
) derides the folly of mercenary soldiers, who fight and perish while kings stay at home; the vile morals of kings and lords, their heresy and unbelief.
In Babylon ofrece Rosa represents himself as a fisherman, Tirreno, constantly unlucky in his net-hauls on the Euphrates; he converses with a native of the country, Ergasto. Babylon (Rome) is very severely treated, and Naples much the same.
Envy (the last of the satires, and generally accounted the best, although without strong apparent reason) represents Rosa dreaming that, as he is about to inscribe in all modesty his name upon the threshold of the temple of glory, the goddess or fiend of Envy obstructs him, and a long interchange of reciprocal objurgations ensues. Here occurs the highly charged portrait of the chief Roman detractor of Salvator (we are not aware that he has ever been identified by name); and the painter protests that he would never condescend to do any of the lascivious work in painting so shamefully in vogue.
One of the pieces included in the piano collection Années de Pèlerinage
by Franz Liszt
is entitled "Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa."
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
.
Early life
He was born in ArenellaArenella
Arenella is a neighbourhood of Naples, southern Italy. It is on the Vomero hill above the city and was, at approximately 300 meters in elevation, many years ago considered a place to go to "get away from it all." It is adjacent to the main hospital section of the city, set somewhat higher, on...
, in the outskirts of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, on either June 20 or July 21, 1615. 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 Francanzano
Francesco Francanzano
Francesco Francanzano was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Naples. He was the pupil of the painter Jusepe Ribera. One of his pupils was Salvator Rosa, who became his brother-in-law. He participated in the Masaniello rebellion, and was pardoned. By report, after inciting...
, a pupil of Ribera, and afterwards to either Aniello Falcone
Aniello Falcone
Aniello Falcone was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes.-Biography:...
, a contemporary of Domenico Gargiulo
Domenico Gargiulo
Domenico Gargiulo was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, mainly active in Naples and known for his landscapes....
, or Ribera himself. Some sources claim he spent time living with roving bandits. At the age of seventeen he lost his father; his mother was destitute with at least five children, and Salvator found himself without financial support.
Life
Giovanni Lanfranco
Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.-Biography:Giovanni Gaspare Lanfranco was born in Parma, the third son of Stefano and Cornelia Lanfranchi, and was placed as a page in the household of Count Orazio Scotti...
took notice of his work, and advised him to relocate to Rome, where he stayed from 1634–36.
Returning to Naples, he began painting haunting landscapes, overgrown with vegetation, or jagged beaches, mountains, and caves. Rosa was among the first to paint "romantic" landscapes, with a special turn for scenes of picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
often turbulent and rugged scenes peopled with shepherds, brigands, seamen, soldiers. These early landscapes were sold cheaply through private dealers.
He returned to Rome in 1638–39, where he was housed by Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio
Francesco Maria Brancaccio
Francesco Maria Brancaccio was an Italian cardinal.He was elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Urban VIII in his consistory of 28 November 1633. He became Bishop of Viterbo in 1638, then of Sabina , and finally of Frascati...
, bishop of Viterbo. For the Chiesa Santa Maria della Morte in Viterbo, Rosa painted his first and one of his few altarpieces with an Incredulity of Thomas.
While Rosa had a facile genius at painting, he pursued a wide variety of arts: music, poetry, writing, etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
, and acting. In Rome, he befriended Pietro Testa
Pietro Testa
Pietro Testa was an Italian High Baroque artist, best known, both to his contemporaries and modern appreciation, as a printmaker and draftsman, who was active in Rome.-Biography:...
and Claude Lorraine. During a Roman carnival play he wrote and acted in a masque, in which his character bustled about Rome distributing satirical prescriptions for diseases of the body and more particularly of the mind. In costume, he inveighed against the farcical comedies acted in the Trastevere
Trastevere
Trastevere is rione XIII of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City. Its name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, meaning literally "beyond the Tiber". The correct pronunciation is "tras-TEH-ve-ray", with the accent on the second syllable. Its logo is a golden head of a lion on a...
under the direction of Bernini.
While his plays were successful, this also gained him powerful enemies among patrons and artists, including Bernini himself, in Rome. By late 1639, he had to relocate to Florence, where he stayed for 8 years. He had been in part, invited by a Cardinal Giancarlo de Medici. Once there, Rosa sponsored a combination of studio and salon of poets, playwrights, and painters—the so called Accademia dei Percossi ("Academy of the Stricken"). To the rigid art milieu of Florence, he introduced his canvases of wild landscapes; while influential, he gathered few true pupils. Another painter poet, Lorenzo Lippi
Lorenzo Lippi
Lorenzo Lippi was an Italian painter and poet.Born in Florence, he studied painting under Matteo Rosselli. Both Baldassare Franceschini and Francesco Furini were also apprenticed with Rosselli...
, shared with Rosa the hospitality of the cardinal and the same circle of friends. Lippi encouraged him to proceed with the poem Il Malmantile Racquistato. He was well acquainted also with Ugo and Giulio Maffei, and housed with them in Volterra
Volterra
Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as Velathri, to the Romans as Volaterrae, is a town and comune in the Tuscany region of Italy.-History:...
, where he wrote four satires Music, Poetry, Painting and War. About the same time he painted his own portrait, now in the National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
.
In 1646 he returned to Naples, and appears to have sympathized with the 1648 insurrection of Masaniello, as a passage in one of his satires suggests. His actual participation in the revolt is dubious. It is alleged that Rosa, along with other painters—Coppola
Carlo Coppola
Carlo Coppola was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in his natal city of Naples. He was a pupil of the battle-painter Aniello Falcone, and was adept at the same topic...
, Paolo Porpora
Paolo Porpora
Paolo Porpora was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque, who was active mainly in Naples and specialized in floral still lifes. He is documented as a pupil of Giacomo Recco, the father of Giuseppe Recco, and said to have worked under Aniello Falcone. He joined the Roman Accademia di San Luca from...
, Domenico Gargiulo
Domenico Gargiulo
Domenico Gargiulo was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, mainly active in Naples and known for his landscapes....
, Pietro dal Po, Marzio Masturzo
Marzio Masturzo
Marzio Masturzo was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active near his natal city of Naples. He was a pupil of Paolo Greco, then, along with Salvatore Rosa, a fellow-pupil of Aniello Falcone.Like Falcone, he often painted battle scenes...
, the two Vaccari
Andrea Vaccaro
Andrea Vaccaro was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mostly in Naples in a tenebrist style....
and Cadogna—all under the captaincy of Aniello Falcone
Aniello Falcone
Aniello Falcone was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes.-Biography:...
, formed the Compagnia della Morte, whose mission it was to hunt down Spaniards in the streets, not sparing even those who had sought religious asylum. He painted a portrait of Masaniello—probably from reminiscence rather than life. On the approach of Don Juan de Austria
Don Juan de Austria
Don Juan de Austria may refer to:People:*John of Austria, general and illegitimate son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...
, the blood-stained Compagnia dispersed.
Other tales recount that from there he escaped and joined with brigands in the Abruzzi. Although this incident cannot be conveniently dove-tailed into known dates of his career, in 1846 a famous romantic ballet
Romantic ballet
The Romantic ballet is defined primarily by an era in ballet in which the ideas of Romanticism in art and literature influenced the creation of ballets. The era occurred during the early to mid 19th century primarily at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet and Her...
about this story titled Catarina was produced in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
by the choreographer Jules Perrot
Jules Perrot
Jules-Joseph Perrot was a dancer and choreographer who later became Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia...
and composer Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
).
He returned to stay in Rome in 1649. Here he increasingly focused on large scale paintings, tackling themes and stories unusual for seventeenth-century painters. These included Democritus amid the Tombs, The Death of Socrates, Regulus in the Spiked Cask (these two are now in England), Justice Quitting the Earth and the Wheel of Fortune. This last work, with its implication that too often foolish artists received rewards that did not match their talent, raised a storm of controversy. Rosa, endeavouring at conciliation, published a description of its meaning (probably softened down not a little from the real facts); nonetheless he was nearly arrested. It was about this time that Rosa wrote his satire named Babylon.
Volterra
Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as Velathri, to the Romans as Volaterrae, is a town and comune in the Tuscany region of Italy.-History:...
coached him about the topic of his satires, the compositions of which remained nonetheless his own. To confute his detractors he now wrote the last of the series, entitled Envy.
Among the pictures of his last years were the admired Battlepiece and Saul and the Witch of Endor (latter perhaps final work) now in Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, painted in 40 days, full of longdrawn carnage, with ships burning in the offing; Pythagoras and the Fishermen; and the Oath of Catiline (Pitti Palace).
While occupied with a series of satirical portraits, to be closed by one of himself, Rosa was assailed by dropsy. He died a half year later. In his last moments he married a Florentine named Lucrezia, who had borne him two sons, one of them surviving him, and he died in a contrite frame of mind. He lies buried in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs is a titular basilica church in Rome, built inside the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian. The Cardinal priest of the is William Henry Keeler.- The basilica :...
, where a portrait of him has been set up. Salvator Rosa, after struggles of his early youth, had successfully earned a handsome fortune.
He was a significant etcher, with a highly popular and influential series of small prints of soldiers, and a number of larger and very ambitious subjects.
Legacy
Rosa's most lasting influence was on the later development of romantic and picturesque traditions within painting. 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 himself may have dismissed them as frivolous cappricci in comparison to his other themes, but these academically conventional canvases often restrained his rebellious streak. In general, in landscapes he avoided the idyllic and pastoral calm countrysides of Claude Lorraine and Paul BrillPaul Brill
Paul Brill is a multiple Emmy Award-nominated composer, songwriter and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has scored dozens of feature films, television series and commercials, most notably including: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, The Devil Came on Horseback, The Trials of Darryl Hunt,...
, and created brooding, melancholic fantasies, awash in ruins and brigands. By the eighteenth century, the contrasts between Rosa and artists such as Claude was much remarked upon. A 1748 poem by James Thompson, The Castle of Indolence, illustrated this: Whate'er Lorraine light touched with softening hue/ Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
drew. He influenced Gaspar Dughet's landscape style.
A recent exhibit of Turner's work, at the Prado museum in Madrid, notes the influence Rosa had on Turner, in his landscapes. In fact it is reported that Turner consciously wanted to be associated with the work of Rosa. Another exhibition of Rosa's work, held at London's Dulwich Picture Gallery
Dulwich Picture Gallery
Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London. England's first purpose-built public art gallery, it was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane and opened to the public in 1817. Soane arranged the exhibition spaces as a series of interlinked rooms illuminated naturally...
in 2010, emphasised the strangeness of Rosa's painting and themes, showing his enthusiasm for 'bandits, wilderness and magic'.
In a time when artists where often highly constrained by patrons, Rosa had a plucky streak of independence, which celebrated the special role of the artist. "Our wealth must consist in things of the spirit, and in contenting ourselves with sipping, while others gorge themselves in prosperity". He refused to paint on commission or to agree on a price beforehand, and he chose his own subjects. He painted in order "to be carried away by the transports of enthusiasm and use my brushes only when I feel myself rapt". This tempestuous spirit became the darling of British Romantics.
Satires
Terza rima
Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.-Form:Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D...
, written without much literary correctness, but remarkably spirited, pointed and even brilliant. They are slashingly denunciatory, and from this point of view too monotonous in treatment. Rosa here appears as a very severe castigator of all ranks and conditions of men, not sparing the highest, and as a champion of the poor and down-trodden, and of moral virtue and Catholic faith. It seems odd that a man who took so free a part in the pleasures and diversions of life should be so ruthless to the ministers of these.
The satire on Music exposes the insolence and profligacy of musicians, and the shame of courts and churches in encouraging them. Poetry dwells on the pedantry, imitativeness, adulation, affectation a and indecency of poets—also their poverty, and the neglect with which they were treated; and there is a very vigorous sortie against oppressive governors and aristocrats. Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
's glory is upheld; Dante
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
is spoken of as obsolete, and Ariosto as corrupting.
Painting inveighs against the pictorial treatment of squalid subjects, such as beggars (though Rosa must surely himself have been partly responsible for this misdirection of the art), against the ignorance and lewdness of painters, and their tricks of trade, and the gross indecorum of painting sprawling half-naked saints of both sexes. War (which contains a eulogy of Masaniello
Masaniello
Masaniello was a Neapolitan fisherman, who became leader of the revolt against Spanish Habsburg rule in Naples in 1647.-Name and place of birth:...
) derides the folly of mercenary soldiers, who fight and perish while kings stay at home; the vile morals of kings and lords, their heresy and unbelief.
In Babylon ofrece Rosa represents himself as a fisherman, Tirreno, constantly unlucky in his net-hauls on the Euphrates; he converses with a native of the country, Ergasto. Babylon (Rome) is very severely treated, and Naples much the same.
Envy (the last of the satires, and generally accounted the best, although without strong apparent reason) represents Rosa dreaming that, as he is about to inscribe in all modesty his name upon the threshold of the temple of glory, the goddess or fiend of Envy obstructs him, and a long interchange of reciprocal objurgations ensues. Here occurs the highly charged portrait of the chief Roman detractor of Salvator (we are not aware that he has ever been identified by name); and the painter protests that he would never condescend to do any of the lascivious work in painting so shamefully in vogue.
Works around Rosa
A number of biographies and fictionalizations of the life of Rosa exist:- Domenico Passeri speaks of him in Vite de Pittori
- Salvini, Satire e Vita di Salvator Rosa
- BaldinucciFilippo BaldinucciFilippo Baldinucci was an Italian art historian and biographer.-Life:Baldinucci is considered among the most significant Florentine biographers/historians of the artists and the arts of the Baroque period...
- Bernardo de' DominiciBernardo de' DominiciBernardo de' Dominici was an Italian art historian and painter of the late-Baroque period, active mainly in Naples, painting landscapes, marine vedute, and genre scenes such as characteristic of Bamboccianti...
, Vita di Rosa (1742, Naples) - In England, Lady Morgan in A Life, and Albert Cotton in A Company of Death' romanticized his life.
- Rosa is also the fictional hero of the novella Signor Formica, 1819, also known simply as Salvator Rosa, by E.T.A. HoffmannE.T.A. HoffmannErnst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
. - Salvatore Rosa is a 19th century Italian Opera by Antônio Carlos GomesAntônio Carlos GomesAntônio Carlos Gomes was the first New World composer whose work was accepted by Europe.-Life:He was born in Campinas, Brazil, son of Maestro Manuel José Gomes and Fabiana Maria Jaguari Cardoso....
, with libretto by Antonio GhislanzoniAntonio GhislanzoniAntonio Ghislanzoni was an Italian journalist, poet, and novelist who wrote librettos for Verdi, among other composers, of which the best known are Aida and the revised version of La forza del destino....
, after the novel Masaniello by Eugene Mirecourt. - The 1846 ballet Catarina by the choreographer Jules PerrotJules PerrotJules-Joseph Perrot was a dancer and choreographer who later became Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia...
and the composer Cesare PugniCesare PugniCesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
was produced in London at Her Majesty's TheatreHer Majesty's TheatreHer Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
, and was inspired by the alleged story of Rosa's dealings with Brigands of the Abruzzi.
One of the pieces included in the piano collection Années de Pèlerinage
Années de Pèlerinage
Années de pèlerinage is a set of three suites by Franz Liszt for solo piano. Liszt's complete musical style is evident in this masterwork, which ranges from virtuosic fireworks to sincerely moving emotional statements. His musical maturity can be seen evolving through his experience and travel...
by Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
is entitled "Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa."