Part 8

After Salvator Rosa's return to Rome from Florence, he demanded exorbitant prices for his works, and though his greatest talent lay in landscape painting, he affected to despise that branch, being ambitious of shining as an historical painter. He painted some altar-pieces and other subjects for the churches, the chief of which are four pictures in S. Maria di Monte Santo, representing Daniel in the Lions' Den, Tobit and the Angel, the Resurrection of Christ, and the Raising of Lazarus; the Martyrdom of St. Cosimo and St. Damiano, in the church of S. Giovanni.

The brightest era of landscape painting is said with truth to have been in the time of Pope Urban VIII., when flourished Claude Lorraine, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa. Of these, Salvator was the most distinguished, though certainly not the best; each was the head of a perfectly original school, which had many followers, and each observed nature on the side in which he felt impelled to imitate her. The first admired and represented nature in her sweetest appearance; the second, in her most gorgeous array; and the third in her most convulsed and terrific aspects.

SALVATOR ROSA'S SUBJECTS.

Salvator Rosa painted history, landscape, battle-pieces, and sea-ports; and of these he was most eminent in landscape. The scholar of Spagnoletto, he attached himself to the strong natural style and dark coloring of that master, which well accords with his subjects. In his landscapes, instead of selecting the cultured amenity which captivates in the views of Claude or Poussin, he made choice of the lonely haunts of wolves and robbers; instead of the delightful vistas of Tivoli and the Campagna, he adopted the savage scenery of the Alps, rocky precipices, caves with wild thickets and desert plains; his trees are shattered, or torn up by the roots, and in the atmosphere itself he seldom introduced a cheerful hue, except occasionally a solitary sunbeam. These gloomy regions are peopled with congenial inhabitants, ferocious banditti, assassins, and outlaws. In his marines, he followed the same taste; they represent the desolate and shelvy shores of Calabria, whose dreary aspect is sometimes heightened by terrific tempests, with all the horrors of shipwreck. His battles and attacks of cavalry also partake of the same principle of wild beauty; the fury of the combatants, and the fiery animation of the horses are depicted with a truth and effect that strikes the mind with horror. Notwithstanding the singularity and fierceness of his style, he captivates by the unbounded wildness of his fancy, and the picturesque solemnity of his scenes.

Salvator Rosa wrought with wonderful facility, and could paint a well finished landscape and insert all the figures in one day; it is impossible to inspect one of his bold, rapid sketches, without being struck with the fertility of his invention, and the skill of hand that rivalled in execution the activity of his mind. He was also an excellent portrait painter. A portrait of himself is in the church degli Angeli, where his remains were interred, and he introduced his own portrait into several of his pictures, one of which is in the Chigi gallery, representing a wild scene with a poet in a sitting attitude, (with the features of Salvator); before him stands a satyr, allusive to his satiric style of poetry. During his life-time, his works were much sought after by princes and nobles, and they are now to be found in the choicest collections of Italy and of Europe. There is a landscape in the English National Gallery which cost 1800 guineas; a picture in the collection of Sir Mark Sykes brought the enormous sum of 2100 guineas.

FLAGELLATION OF SALVATOR ROSA.

It happened one day that Salvator Rosa, in his youth, on his way to mass, brought with him by mistake, his bundle of burned sticks, with which he used to draw, instead of his mother's brazen clasped missal; and in passing along the magnificent cloisters of the great church of the Certosa at Naples, sacred alike to religion and the arts, he applied them between the interstices of its Doric columns to the only unoccupied space on the pictured walls. History has not detailed what was the subject which occupied his attention on this occasion, but he was working away with all the ardor which his enthusiastic genius inspired, when unfortunately the Prior, issuing with his train from the choir, caught the hapless painter in the very act of scrawling on those sacred walls which required all the influence of the greatest masters to get leave to ornament. The sacrilegious temerity of the boy artist, called for instant and exemplary punishment. Unluckily too, for the little offender, this happened in Lent, the season in which the rules of the rigid Chartreuse oblige the prior and procurator to flagellate all the frati, or lay brothers of the convent. They were, therefore, armed for their wonted pious discipline, when the miserable Salvatoriello fell in their way; whether he was honored by the consecrated hand of the prior, or writhed under the scourge of the procurator, does not appear; but that he was chastised with great severity more than proportioned to his crime, is attested by one of the most scrupulous of his biographers, Pascoli, who, though he dwells lightly on the fact, as he does on others of more importance, confesses that he suffered severely from the monks' flagellation.

SALVATOR ROSA AND THE HIGGLING PRINCE.

A Roman prince, more notorious for his pretensions to virtu than for his liberality to artists, sauntering one day in Salvator's gallery, in the Via Babbuina, paused before one of his landscapes, and after a long contemplation of its merits, exclaimed, "Salvator mio! I am strongly tempted to purchase this picture: tell me at once the lowest price."--"Two hundred scudi," replied Salvator, carelessly. "Two hundred scudi! Ohime! that is a price! but we'll talk of that another time." The illustrissimo took his leave; but bent upon having the picture, he shortly returned, and again inquired the lowest price. "Three hundred scudi!" was the sullen reply. "Carpo di bacco!" cried the astonished prince; "mi burla, vostra signoria; you are joking! I see I must e'en wait upon your better humor; and so addio, Signor Rosa."

The next day brought back the prince to the painter's gallery; who, on entering, saluted Salvator with a jocose air, and added, "Well, Signor Amico, how goes the market to-day? Have prices risen or fallen?"

"Four hundred scudi is the price to-day!" replied Salvator, with affected calmness; when suddenly giving way to his natural impetuosity, and no longer stifling his indignation, he burst forth: "The fact is, your excellency shall not now obtain this picture from me at any price; and yet so little do I value its merits, that I deem it worthy no better fate than this;" and snatching the panel on which it was painted from the wall, he flung it to the ground, and with his foot broke it into a hundred pieces. His excellency made an unceremonious retreat, and returned no more to the enraged painter's studio.

SALVATOR ROSA'S OPINION OF HIS OWN WORKS.

While a Roman nobleman was one day endeavoring to drive a hard bargain with Salvator Rosa, he coolly interrupted him, saying that, till the picture was finished, he himself did not know its value; "I never bargain, sir, with my pencil; for it knows not the value of its own labor before the work is finished. When the picture is done, I will let you know what it costs, and you may then take it or not as you please."

SALVATOR ROSA'S BANDITTI.

There is an etching by Salvator Rosa, which seems so plainly to tell the story of the wandering artist's captivity, that it merits a particular description. In the midst of wild, rocky scenery, appears a group of banditti, armed at all points, and with all sorts of arms; they are lying in careless attitudes, but with fierce countenances, around a youthful prisoner, who forms the foreground figure, and is seated on a rock, with his languid limbs hanging over the precipice, which may be supposed to yawn beneath. It is impossible to describe the despair depicted in this figure: it is marked in his position, in the drooping of his head, which his nerveless arms seem with difficulty to support, and the little that may be seen of his face, over which, from his recumbent attitude, his hair falls in luxuriant profusion. All is alike destitute of energy and of hope, which the beings grouped around the captive seem to have banished forever by some sentence recently pronounced; yet there is one who watches over the fate of the young victim: a woman stands immediately behind him, with her hand stretched out, while her fore finger, resting on his head, marks him as the subject of discourse which she addresses to the listening bandits. Her figure, which is erect is composed of those bold, straight lines, which in art and nature, constitute the grand. Even the fantastic cap or turban, from which her long dishevelled hair has escaped, has no curve of grace; and her drapery partakes of the same rigid forms. Her countenance is full of stern melancholy--the natural character of one whose feelings and habits are at variance; whose strong passions may have flung her out of the pale of society, but whose womanly sympathies still remain unchanged. She is artfully pleading for the life of the youth, by contemptuously noting his insignificance; but she commands while she soothes. She is evidently the mistress or the wife of the chief, in whoso absence an act of vulgar violence may be meditated. The youth's life is saved: for that cause rarely fails, to which a woman brings the omnipotence of her feelings.

SALVATOR ROSA AND MASSANIELLO.

It was during the residence of Salvator Rosa in Naples, that the memorable popular tumult under Massaniello took place; and our painter was persuaded by his former master, Aniello Falcone, to become one of an adventurous set of young men, principally painters, who had formed themselves into a band for the purpose of taking revenge on the Spaniards, and were called "La Compagna della Morte." The tragical fate of Massaniello, however, soon dispersed these heroes; and Rosa, fearing he might be compelled to take a similar part in that fatal scene, sought safety by flight, and took refuge in Rome.

SALVATOR ROSA AND CARDINAL SFORZA.

Salvator Rosa is said never to have suffered the rank or office of his auditors to interfere with the freedom of his expressions in his poetic recitations. Cardinal Sforza Pullavicini, one of the most generous patrons of the fine arts, and a rigid critic of his day, was curious to hear the improvisatore of the Via Babbuina, and sent an invitation requesting Salvator's company at his palace. Salvator frankly declared that two conditions were annexed to his accepting the honor of his Eminence's acquaintance; first, that the Cardinal should come to his house, as he never recited in any other; and second, that he should not object to any passage, the omission of which would detract from the original character of his work, or compromise his own sincerity. The Cardinal accepted the conditions. The next day all the literary coxcombs of Rome crowded to the levee of the hypercritical prelate to learn his opinion of the poet, whose style was without precedent. The Cardinal declared, with a justice which posterity has sanctioned, that "Salvator's poetry was full of splendid passages, but that, as a whole, it was unequal."

SALVATOR ROSA'S MANIFESTO CONCERNING HIS SATIRICAL PICTURE LA FORTUNA.

In Salvator Rosa's celebrated picture of La Fortuna, the nose of one powerful ecclesiastic, and the eye of another were detected in the brutish physiognomy of the swine treading upon pearls, and in an ass, scattering with his hoofs the laurel and myrtle which lay in his path; and in an old goat, reposing on roses, some there were, who even fancied they discovered the Infallible Lover of Donna Olympia, the Sultana, queen of the Quirinal!

The cry of atheism and sedition--of contempt of established authorities--was thus raised under the influence of private pique and long-cherished envy: it soon found an echo in the painted walls where the conclave sat "in close divan," and it was handed about from mouth to mouth, till it reached the ears of the Inquisitor, within the dark recesses of his house of terror. A cloud was now gathering over the head of the devoted Salvator which it seemed no human power could avert. But ere the bolt fell, his fast and tried friend Don Maria Ghigi threw himself between his protege and the horrible fate which awaited him, by forcing the sullen satirist to draw up an apology, or rather an explanation of his offensive picture.

This explanation, bearing title of a "Manifesto," he obtained permission to present to those powerful and indignant persons in whose hands the fate of Salvator now lay; Rosa explained away all that was supposed to be personal in his picture, and proved that his hogs were not churchmen, his mules pretending pedants, his asses Roman nobles, and his birds and beasts of prey the reigning despots of Italy. His imprudence however, subsequently raised such a storm that he was obliged to quit Rome, when he fled to Florence.

SALVATOR ROSA'S BANISHMENT FROM ROME.

Salvator Rosa secretly deplored his banishment from Rome; and his impatience at being separated from Carlo Rossi and some other of his friends, was so great that he narrowly escaped losing his liberty to obtain an interview with them. About three years after his arrival in Florence, he took post-horses, and at midnight set off for Rome. Having reached the gardens of the "Vigna Navicella," and bribed the custode to lend them for a few hours, and otherwise to assist him, he dispatched a circular billet to eighteen of his friends, supplicating them to give him a rendezvous at the Navicella. Each believed that Salvator had fallen into some new difficulty, which had obliged him to fly from Florence, and all attended his summons. He received them at the head of a well furnished table, embraced them with tenderness, feasted them sumptuously, and then mounting his horse, returned to Florence before his Roman persecutors or Tuscan friends were aware of his adventure.

SALVATOR ROSA'S WIT.

Salvator Rosa exhibited a clever picture, the work of an amateur by profession a surgeon, which had been rejected by the academicians of St. Luke. The artists came in crowds to see it; and by those who were ignorant of the painter, it was highly praised. On being asked who had painted it by some one, Salvator replied, "It was performed by a person whom the great academicians of St. Luke thought fit to scorn, because his ordinary profession was that of a surgeon. But (continued he), I think they have not acted wisely; for if they had admitted him into their academy, they would have had the advantage of his services in setting the broken and distorted limbs that so frequently occur in their exhibitions."

SALVATOR ROSA'S RECEPTION AT FLORENCE.