On Monday 10th Jan, the baroque scholar Helen Langdon is giving a seminar on philosophers in the art of Salvator Rosa. Author of a book on Caravaggio, and the leading curator of the Rosa show at Dulwich, Helen is an expert on 17th century art. I’ve heard her speak on this subject and it is fascinating. Anybody interested in the baroque should go. I wish I could make it myself.
Representations of Philosophers in the art of Salvator Rosa. January 10th 4.30 pm Warburg Institute.
“This seminar traces the development of Rosa's treatment of philosopher subjects and suggests the strains of contemporary thought and feeling to which they so deeply appealed. It starts with his Cynic and Stoic subjects, which are connected to his role as satirist, and denounce the corruption of his times, and concludes with his later interest in the pre-Socratics, in magicians and natural philosophers, who 'seek out the secrets of nature' and who in may ways anticipate the 18th century sublime. “
Featured painting. Salvator Rosa, Diogenes and Alexander, Althorpe House, Northampton, 1643.
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