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Start with the young man crowned with laurel at the right, then find the Latin verse on the tablet below him and the papers scattered on the ground at the left.
Rosa etched this large print in 1662 as an image of his own genius, set among allegorical figures and tall, slender trees. The Latin verse at lower right calls that genius sincere, free and fiery, scornful of wealth and death. The Art Institute of Chicago reads the crumpled sheets of music and the grass creeping over a sculpture as an admission that ambition can fail.
Etching and drypoint on ivory laid paper · Plate: 46 × 27.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Genius of Salvator Rosa
- Artist
- Salvator Rosa Italian, 1615-1673
- Date
- 1662
- Medium
- Etching and drypoint on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Plate: 46 × 27.5 cm (18 1/8 × 10 7/8 in.); Sheet: 58 × 43.6 cm (22 7/8 × 17 3/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Anselmo Carini Memorial Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.