 |
| Salvator Rosa Finding of Moses ca. 1660-65 oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Finding of Moses (detail of figure group) ca. 1660-65 oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts |
"A man of brilliant talent, but a rebel in perpetuity, remorseless in his criticism of society, obsessed by a pre-romantic egotistic conception of genius, Salvator Rosa took offence at being acclaimed as a painter of landscapes, marines, and battle-pieces. But it is on his achievement in this field rather than on his great historical compositions that his posthumous fame rests. True to the Italian theoretical approach, he regarded these 'minor' genres as a frivolous pastime. On the other hand, they gave him the chance of letting his hot temper run amok. Setting out from the Flemish landscape tradition of Paul and Mattheus Bril, many of his landscapes have their skies dark and laden, storms twist and turn the trees, melancholy lies over the crags and cliffs, buildings crumple into ruins, and banditti linger waiting for their prey. Painted with a tempestuous brownish and grey palette, these wild scenes were regarded as the opposite to Claude's enchanted elysiums. The eighteenth century saw in Salvator's and Claude's landscapes the quintessential contrast between the sublime and the beautiful. In Sir Joshua Reynolds's words, Claude conducts us 'to the tranquility of Arcadian scenes and fairy land,' while Rosa's style possesses 'the power of inspiring sentiments of grandeur and sublimity.'"
"Yet it must be emphasized that the romantic quality of Rosa's landscapes is superimposed on a classical structure, a recipe of 'landscape making' which he shares with the classicists. Landscape with the Finding of Moses [directly above] shows the repoussoir trunk and tree left and right in the foreground, the classical division into three distances, the careful balancing of light and dark areas. In addition, the arc of the group of figures fits harmoniously into the undulating terrain, is 'protected' by the larger arc of the tree, and given prominence by the silvery storm-clouds of the background. Based on accepted formulas, such landscapes were carefully devised in the studio; they are, moreover, 'landscapes of thought,' because more often than not the figures belong to mythology or the Bible and tie the genre, sometimes by a tender link, to the great tradition of Italian painting."
– Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750, originally published in 1958, revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu and reissued by Yale University Press in 1999
 |
| Salvator Rosa Landscape with Travelers asking the way 1641 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Landscape with Armed Men ca. 1640 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Landscape with Armed Men ca. 1640 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Landscape with Mercury and the Dishonest Woodman ca. 1663 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Pythagoras emerging from the Underworld 1662 oil on canvas Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
 |
| Salvator Rosa The Good Samaritan before 1673 oil on panel York City Art Gallery (Yorkshire) |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Rocky Landscape with Figures before 1673 oil on canvas University of Edinburgh |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Mountain Landscape before 1673 oil on canvas Southampton City Art Gallery (Hampshire) |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Polycrates and the Fisherman ca. 1664 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Polycrates' Crucifixion ca. 1664 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Landscape with Bathers ca. 1660 oil on canvas Yale University Art Gallery |
 |
| Salvator Rosa St John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness ca. 1660 oil on canvas Saint Louis Art Museum |