As some of you have contacted me and asked what I got up to in London recently, I thought I'd oblige. After the V&A exhibition, I attended a study day on the 17th century Italian Painter Salvator Rosa at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. It was absolutely awesome- I feel really privileged to have been asked.
Basically, we were introduced to each section of the exhibition, Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness and Magic. Our hosts were the curators, the Rosa expert Helen Langdon, and her two superb co-curators, Xavier Salomon and Caterina Volpi. Our hosts introduced the paintings and then invited responses from us- an international group of Rosa enthusiasts and experts. Many topics were covered including whether the famous painting in the London, NG is actually a self-portrait or an idealized image of Philosophy. I'm still mulling that one over. I also recall a spirited discussion about the bandits and soldiers in Rosa's paintings; are they actual robbers, mercenaries or a creation of Rosa's? Could they be aspects of his own iconography of the dispossessed? I think Rosa painted a picture of Painting outside the gates of Rome, and there is a drawing of painting as a beggar at Windsor.
There was also an engrossing discussion of philosophical landscapes, especially how Rosa's figures resembled Poussin's, as in this painting of Pythagoras. Poussin seems to have invented this erudite genre, although Rosa painted every philosopher under the sun like Archytas with his mechanical dove.
If you live in the U.K, you should seriously consider visiting the show; if you live in London, you should definitely go. And if you live in the States, the exhibition transfers to the KImbell Museum at Fort Worth at the end of the UK leg. As the first exhibition on Rosa in the UK since 1973, it's a must.
Images
Self-portrait or Philosophy, 1641, London, NG
Pythagoras emerging from the Underworld, 1662, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.
Comments