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(Excerpt from Satire Arrivato dunque il Rofa colle fire f...)
Excerpt from Satire Arrivato dunque il Rofa colle fire facezie a farli eonofcere_ per comico, per poeta, per fuonatore, e per mufico, non gli fù molto difficile l' introdnrii in appreifo, conforme egli bramava, nella grazia di var perfonaggi, acciocché gli face?'ero firada nell' ufcir fuori come pittore; ed in fatti ne ebbe molte commifiioni dalle quali tutte riportò grand' utile e gran lode; onde trattandoli cifo con molta proprietà tanto nel veitire, quanto in ogni altro comodo, ambi. Di farti vedere in Napoli in uno fiato cotanto diverfo da quel miferabile e tapino, in cui prima era da ogni uno veduto ecompatito. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Salvator Rosa was born in Naples on 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.
He first studied painting with his uncle, Domenico Greco, then with Jusepe de Ribera, and finally with Aniello Falcone.
In 1640, after spending some time in Rome, Rosa moved to Florence, where he worked as a painter for the Medici court. In Florence he met Lucrezia, who became his mistress, and the poet Giovan Battista Ricciardi, who became his lifelong friend. Finding himself ill-adapted to court circles, in 1650 Rosa returned to Rome, this time permanently. Eleven days after his marriage he was dead. Alone among the major painters in the city, he had (by his own choice) no powerful patron. He rarely accepted commissions; instead, he tried to sell from his studio and to make himself known through public exhibitions, which were seldom and few. To a client who dared to suggest his own subject, Rosa said, "Go to a brickmaker, they work on order. " In contrast, Pietro da Cortona, Rosa's enormously successful rival in Rome, boasted that he never chose the subject of any of his paintings and if asked would refuse to do so. In his stand for artistic independence Rosa was far ahead of his time. Rosa's protest is still clearer in his satirical poetry. Here he ridiculed the official art of the papal court, especially the work of Cortona and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Later Rosa's attacks extended to the papacy. His poetry won him a host of enemies, an entry in the Index of Forbidden Books that lasted for 2 centuries, and a place in the history of Italian literature, which, though small, appears to be permanent. Grotto with Cascades is typical of Rosa's small landscapes, which his friends called "caprices. " It is fully baroque in its painterly handling, open brushwork, dark shadows, and the silvery impasto that is used to suggest the sparkle of falling water. But it is also romantic. Above the tiny figures towers a gigantic natural bridge eroded by waterfalls. Man appears insignificant and irrelevant before the grandeur of nature. L'umana fragilità is characteristic of the more serious current that imbues Rosa's later work. The young woman in the foreground wears a wreath of widely opened roses (which are fragile and impermanent). On her lap sits an infant who, guided by a winged skeleton, writes the words, "conceived in sin, born to pain, a life of labor, and inevitable death. " Other symbols of impermanence are infants blowing soap bubbles and burning tufts of flax. In sharp contrast to his wild, untamed landscapes, the mood of these late works is one of quietude and resignation in the face of destiny; they reflect the then current revival of the philosophy of stoicism.
Salvator Rosa is best known for his unusual landscapes that had a dark and melancholy feel to them. He painted overgrown vegetation, ragged mountains, moss-laden trees, and picturesquely wild scenes of nature that radically departed from the serene sceneries painted by other famous artists of his era. His landscapes had a significant impact on the 19th century school of English landscape painting.
(Excerpt from Satire Arrivato dunque il Rofa colle fire f...)
Rosa emerges as a strangely touching figure, proud, melancholic, and fiercely independent.
While in Florence he met a woman named Lucrezia with who he became involved in a long term relationship. The couple had two children. On his deathbed, Salvator Rosa married her on March 4, 1673.
