Thursday, 28 March 2019

Salvador Rosa or the art of getting lost in art.

I was thinking of talking about Salvador Rosa, an Italian painter.  I discovered him in Gothic Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin (https://www.amazon.com/Gothic-Hundred-Years-Excess-Horror/dp/0865475903/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=2NA7K1ZVB9Y09&keywords=gothic+four+hundred+years+of+excess&qid=1553461096&s=gateway&sprefix=gothic+four+h%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1-fkmrnull).  In the book, Salvador Rosa is presented as an indirect influence on the origin of the British Goth movement.  Well, it is what I understood.
With painting like his Landscape with Cave (https://goo.gl/images/DkWqVf), I thought it was a deal done: that Salvador Rosa had a penchant for decadence.

Thing got more confusing when I started to search more about that painter.  I saw him linked with baroque in other sources like the Encyclopaedia Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/).  I feel a bit at a loss but I also wonder what is baroque.  I look at the definition in artcyclopedia (http://www.artcyclopedia.com/).  There they say that baroque is a reaction against mannerism.  Ok, it is there where I think I don't know enough.  Both are not as known as impressionism or other popular art movement.  As I looked up about mannerism, I understood it is about beauty and harmony.  Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  So, it is subjective.  I don't feel I grasp mannerism and baroque yet.

What I get out of all this?  Well, I think I will stick to the paintings.  The rest is helping to understand the context of the picture.   I just don't understand the various art movement yet.  Maybe I would need the art movement and a concrete and classical example.  I will enjoy the art of Salvador Rosa because I like it.  For the rest, the understanding of the rest will come as I will be ready to receive the information.

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