Holbrook's Trunk

Thursday, September 20, 2012

9 Evenings: Theater and Engineering

9 Evenings poster (1966)

Tonight at 7 p.m., we're screening the three available DVDs featuring footage from the 9 Evenings performances by Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and David Tudor, along with documentary interviews with people involved in the landmark 1966 performance art event. I'll introduce the DVDs with a brief talk, but for those of you wanting more information, I'd like to suggest this website, which is a fantastic resource for information on 9 Evenings and lots more:

http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=294

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

A Closer Look: De Wain Valentine and Human Scale

One of the Georgia Museum of Art’s latest exhibitions, “De Wain Valentine: Human Scale,” opened on Sept. 8, and will be on display until Jan. 27, 2013. In addition to bringing the necessary pieces together in a cohesive manner, a considerable amount of research was required for the exhibition—knowing how, when, and in what context Valentine created his work provides a greater understanding of the different artistic movements during the 1960s and 1970s. A large portion of that research was provided by Beau Ott, a collector of Valentine’s work, who also graciously provided three iconic sculptures for the exhibition: “Lavender Column” (1968), “Rose Circle” (1970) and “Gray Ring” (1974).

“As I enjoy researching the art and artists whose work I collect, I had amassed quite a bit of information about this body of Valentine’s work,” Ott said. “I have been collecting art, from mainly the 1960’s, for nearly 10 years. I became a fan of Valentine’s works, especially from this period, several years ago. I was very excited when the initial opportunity arose for me to acquire one of Valentine’s polyester resin works.”

Ott, as it turns out, became friends with Valentine through the process of obtaining his sculptures. This friendship is especially highlighted in the documentary on loan from the Getty Museum, “From Start to Finish: The Story of De Wain Valentine’s ‘Gray Column’,” which is featured alongside the exhibition.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the vision that De Wain had during a very special time in art history and that he had the tenacity to work with a very difficult medium in order to realize his artistic vision,” said Ott. “I said to him in a recent conversation, ‘De Wain, has anyone in your entire life ever, accused you of thinking small?’”

Indeed, the idea of the small does not seem to apply to Valentine’s work. These sculptures stand six to eight feet high and weigh hundreds, if not thousands of pounds, according to Ott.

“Valentine’s work in this exhibit offers a unique art-viewing experience,” he said. “The large, clear-colored, plastic lens-like sculptures affect the viewer’s perception and offer a unique sculpture-viewing experience as one can simultaneously observe all facets, curves and edges. This was never before possible until Valentine developed the special polyester resin material that could be used [for his work].”

Beau Ott and

De Wain Valentine's

"Lavender Column"

Ott and our docents

“Human Scale” is the first time Valentine’s work has been featured on the East Coast outside of New York, and it seems a stroke of luck that it managed to happen, according to Ott.

“Collectors are hesitant to allow their human scale polyester resin sculptures to travel,” he said. “While Valentine created approximately 50 human scale polyester resin sculptures, fewer…are extant due to the fragility of the pieces.”

There isn’t much room for error, but overall, Ott is happy with the way GMOA has presented Valentine’s work and encourages all to come have a closer look at the immense sculptures.

“The GMOA exhibition was brilliantly curated to allow each of these eight works to be seen to present the fullest effect to the exhibitions’ viewers,” he said. “[It] offers the never-before opportunity to see eight of these sculptures on display within the same exhibition.”

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Come See The New York Collection for Stockholm

The New York Collection for Stockholm is an aggregate collection of works of art that was created in the early 1970s. The elements that generated the collection began to come together during the revolutionary artistic developments in the 1960s. After World War II, the United States went through a great deal of change, due to the influence of mass media, the dissemination of information and new technologies, the rise of consumerism, the Vietnam War and, artistically, the emergence in the late 1940s and 1950s of Abstract Expressionism, a form of art characterized best by its emotional influence and subconscious, spontaneous creation. The group Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was part of this zeitgeist and wanted to foster collaboration between artists and engineers and further both communities’ self-interests.

Initially, E.A.T. was inspired by 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, an event produced by artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman and Bell Lab engineers Willhelm Klüver and Fred Waldhauer in 1966. The 10 performance ran for nine evenings, starting on October 13, and was held at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. The nine multimedia evenings included work by seven other collaborations between an artist and engineers, and it was through the idea of these unions that E.A.T. was officially born immediately after the event. Two years later, the number of group members had expanded to roughly 2,000 artists and 2,000 engineers who participated in projects around the world.

As one of the co-founders of E.A.T., Klüver’s connection to the Moderna Museet in his homeland, Sweden, was instrumental in the genesis of the New York Collection for Stockholm. The director of the Moderna, Pontus Hulten, had Klüver to thank for the museum’s acquisition of some of the best American art at that time—ranging from Andy Warhol to Donald Judd. In 1964, one of Rauschenberg’s sculptures joined the ranks of the Moderna’s permanent collection, five years after he had met Klüver.

Klüver had already become an influential part of the New York art community before 9 Evenings, working with artists to help them utilize technology in their works. Klüver also helped organize exhibitions and film series in Stockholm. One of the events he helped organize at the Moderna hat gained considerable notice in 1964 was 5 New York Evenings, a performance art series. In the early 1970s, the E.A.T. looked to put together a collection of some of the most important American art of the 1960s, with the aim of donating it to a public museum. They chose 30 works in a variety of media and selected the Moderna Museet in Stockholm as the recipient because of its strong history of support for American contemporary art.

Roy Lichtenstein
Finger Pointing

The galleries representing the artists slated for the collection agreed to waive their commissions, cutting the price of the acquisition in half. Princess Christina of Sweden agreed to be the “Patroness of the Collection” so the Swedish government was willing to donate a fifth of the funds necessary for the purchases. However, E.A.T. needed more money in order to purchase the collection, and it was through E.A.T. and Klüver’s work that the enough funding was raised in the form of a limited edition portfolio. The portfolio includes 30 prints by each of the artists—including Kenneth Noland, Dan Flavin, and Nam June Paik—whose work E.A.T. intended to purchase and gift to the Moderna for its collection. The portfolio was produced in an edition of 300, and began selling in the spring of 1973. By the summer of that year, E.A.T. had acquired enough funding to purchase its contemporary American art collection and donate it to Stockholm.

Robert Rauschenberg
Untitled

The Georgia Museum of Art has recently purchased one of the original portfolios Klüver and Hulten compiled. Lynn Boland, Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, organized the exhibition, and the prints from the portfolio will be on display in the Lamar Dodd Gallery at the GMOA from August 18 until October 28. If seeing one of the great turning points of American art sounds like a great way to spend the day, then we highly suggest you come for a visitDon’t miss an extra special treat when Julie Martin (Billy Klüver’s widow and co-founder of E.A.T.) and Robert Whitman (artist and co-founder of E.A.T.) come to GMOA. Boland will lead a conversation with both of them in the gallery on October 24 at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Happy Birthday, Ralston Crawford!

Well known for his Precisionist and geometrically abstract style, Crawford was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1906. He moved with his family at the age of 10 to Buffalo, N.Y., and spent time sailing with his father on the Great Lakes. Following his high school graduation, Crawford worked on cargo ships for six months, traveling to the Caribbean and the Pacific. In 1927, Crawford began his artistic education at Otis Art Institute, working at the Walt Disney Studio as an animator for a side job. He returned to the East Coast to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and at the Barnes Foundation. It was during his later round of studies that he was influenced in his work by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. In 1934, along with being a member of the Independents, a collective of modernist painters, Crawford had his first one-man art show at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Crawford went through multiple artistic phases in his life, the most notable being his Precisionist and geometrically abstract phases. His Precisionist work focused on realistic, sharp renderings of industrial areas, such as factories, bridges, and shipyards, all of which incorporated straight edges and clear borders between separate elements. Crawford’s early work in this vein placed him among other Precisionist artists such as Charles Sheeler, whose noteworthy accomplishments include being one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the 20th century. The use of straight lines in the majority of Crawford’s work evolved into his geometrically abstract period, in which he would utilize the shape as the focus of his paintings, taking events such as bullfighting in Spain or spaces such as cemeteries in New Orleans and re-forming them into how he envisioned them in a geometric spectrum.

One of the highlights of Crawford’s career was an assignment from Fortune Magazine. He traveled to the Bikini Atoll in 1946 to record a portion of the events during Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear weapons tests that provided information on atmospheric and underwater detonations of atomic bombs. The test was incredibly high-profile due to the fact that it was the first detonation of any nuclear device since the bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. Additionally, Crawford worked with photography and experimented with film and printmaking. Crawford died on April 17, 1978, in Houston, Tex., succumbing to cancer.

The Georgia Museum of Art’s permanent collection includes Crawford’s depiction of the blast generated by the atmospheric bomb, nicknamed Able, from Operation Crossroads. For anyone interested in the artistic aspects of such an almost literally “volatile” period in American history, GMOA invites you to come in and experience the reverberations of what Crawford witnessed years ago.

Ralston Crawford
Test Able
1946

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

De Wain Valentine: Thinking Inside and Outside The Box

In grade school we learn about the basic shapes in geometry: circles, ovals, squares, triangles, rectangles, quadrangles, parallelograms, the rhombus, pentagons, hexagons, octagons—the list goes on and on. Under most circumstances, these shapes are only used as simple elements within a much larger work of art. For example, one might use a circle and a triangle in a basic sketch. With added detail, the circle can become a head and the triangle takes the shape of a nose. With more shading, a few lines and a pair of eyes, facial features come into view, and eventually we lose track of the painting’s humble beginnings.

Like any other artist, De Wain Valentine approaches his sculptures with the basic geometry of the finished product in mind. But instead of fading away through added details such as fine chiseling or added sanding and polishing, the concept of the shape serves as the most essential part of his work. That is not to say Valentine doesn’t pay attention to detail—the technical composition of his large, polyester resin sculptures requires a complex process to bring out a sheen that acts as both an opaque reflector and a filter for light to pass through. In this regard, Valentine enables his audiences to look at both themselves and at other people within the scope of his sculptures, almost literally immersing the viewer in art.

De Wain Valentine
"Lavender Column"

De Wain Valentine
"Circle Blue Smoke Flow"

Valentine has had installations shown in the Museum of Modern Art, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu and the San Diego Museum of Art. The Georgia Museum of Art, through the efforts of chief curator and Curator of American Art Paul Manoguerra, Pierre Daura Curator of European Art Lynn Boland, Director William Underwood Eiland, the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, has put together an exhibition featuring Valentine’s work in Human Scale. The exhibition will run from Sept. 8, 2012, until Jan. 27, 2013.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Start the Semester With a BANG!

BANG! Student Night at the Georgia Museum of Art, August 30, 8-10:30PM

The Georgia Museum of Art Student Association commits itself to spreading awareness about art and encouraging the influence of a student voice at the museum. That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t know how to kick back and have a good time.

On Thursday, Aug. 30, the GMOASA will host BANG! Back to School Student Night, which will go from 8 until 10:30 pm. The theme is “War Meets Post-War,” exemplified by the exhibitions of Francisco de Goya’s “Disasters of War” and “The New York Collection for Stockholm,” which highlight two very different time periods and war-era moods.

Not only will there be fun and free food, but the association will also have a range of activities including a photo booth with props and images based on 1960s American art and pop culture, a scavenger hunt starting at 8:30, which will involve searching through the galleries to receive cool prizes, and DIY projects based around Chakaia Booker’s works in the sculpture garden. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet members of the association, including the president, Eva Berlin, and mingle with other students who share similar interests in the arts.

The best part about this event? Besides the experience of art, meeting new people, and having a good time? How about the fact that all of this is FREE? So come start the new school year on a good foot. The museum and the Georgia Museum of Art Student Association will be waiting for you at 90 Carlton Street!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Makeover

If you're a regular visitor to our blog, you may well have noticed the new look and new name, both recently implemented. After years of the blog going by "Curator's Corner," we realized that wasn't always accurate. Paul Manoguerra, our chief curator and curator of American art, originally started this blog, back in the days when he had more time to write for it. But he has exhibitions to plan and books to write and many other things to do that interfere with his blogging duties. Paul still contributes occasionally, as does Lynn Boland, Pierre Daura Curator of European Art at the museum, but this blog is now overwhelmingly written by our wonderful students in the department of communications.

A fresh look complements the new name: Holbrook's Trunk. Alfred Heber Holbrook, pictured above, was the founder and first director of the Georgia Museum of Art. A retired New York lawyer, he devoted the second half of his life to collecting art and then to evangelizing about it. We are forever thankful that he met Lamar Dodd and decided to give his collection to the University of Georgia to establish a museum for the citizens of the state. Since 1945, when the museum was made official (despite the fact that it didn't have a building until 1948), we have been directed by his philosophy. Holbrook was so dedicated to promoting the importance of art that he used to load paintings into the trunk of his car and take off around the state, spreading the gospel to whoever would listen. That kind of carefree behavior with works of art is, somewhat unfortunately, no longer a possibility, but the impulse behind it—to sing the praises of the visual arts across the state, in as relatable a way as possible—still drives us and this blog.

We hope you like the rebrand. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

On Display: The Epic and the Intimate

The Epic and the Intimate: French Drawings from the John D. Reilly Collection at the Snite Museum of Art is a travelling exhibition compiled by the University of Notre Dame’s museum.

The exhibition contains 60 examples tracing the history of French drawings, some of them from before the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture’s establishment, and dating through the French Revolution in 1789. Those 60 drawings, however, are only a taste of the highlights of the full collection at Notre Dame. The John D. Reilly ’63 Collection of Old Master and Nineteenth-Century Drawings currently holds more than 500 French drawings assembled through the collaboration of Reilly and emeritus curator Stephen Spiro.

As the aim of The Epic and the Intimate is to depict a specific period in French history, the collection features work by such artists as Antoine Watteau, Charles de la Fosse and Eugène Delacroix. Most of these drawings were produced during the late 1600s to the early 1700s and, as such, represent a turning point not only in French history, but also in French artistic style. The majority of these revolutionary techniques, in drawing especially, were compounded by the founding of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648. The Academy was responsible for opening schools, appointing instructors and organizing competitions. It ultimately monopolized the art market, generating an influx of new artistic design. One of the changes in technique included a focus on the intimate details of the subject, cultivating a more in-depth and powerful scene or portrait for the viewer.

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (1767 – 1824), Christ Led from Pilate, ca. 1789, black chalk on off-white laid paper.
Snite Museum of Art: Gift of Mr. John D. Reilly ’63, 2000.074.007.

So far, the exhibition has travelled from the Snite Museum to the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Mich., and will be featured at the Crocker Art Museum in California next year. Through the efforts of Lynn Boland (the Georgia Museum of Art’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art), the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, GMOA has secured a spot in its schedule for The Epic and the Intimate, and the collection will be on display at the museum from August 18 until November 3 of this year.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Gold Medals and Art

With the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games due to air tonight, we were interested to see this article from Smithsonian.com on the history of arts medals given out at the Olympics. Although they were only given out from 1912 to 1952, and somewhat spottily at that, the idea that arts could stand alongside sport in international competition is one not often contemplated. Wikipedia has a listing of all the medals awarded, and many of the names are not familiar. One, though, is that of Mahonri Young, who received a gold medal in the "statues" category in 1932. The grandson of Mormon pioneer Brigham Young, he worked in engraving and watercolor as well as sculpture. The image pictured above is his etching "Hopi Snake Dance" (ca. 1924), which is on long-term loan to the Georgia Museum of Art from the collection of Jason Schoen. Some of Young's most well-known works are the painted sculpture dioramas he created for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. This etching most likely relates to that project and probably resulted from the many sketches he made on a research trip to the American Southwest.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

We're Just Getting Started!

It’s been a fulfilling summer here at the Georgia Museum of Art. We’ve had exhibitions come and go, interns who have started and departed and events and parties throughout. As July winds down and August looms around the corner, what can we expect from the GMOA this coming autumn? After all of the amazing art in only a summer, what more can the museum show?

While our permanent collection remains as impressive as ever in its cohesive survey of artists ranging from Americans of the Roaring ‘20s to those of the Italian Renaissance, and Chakaia Booker’s statues remain in our sculpture garden, GMOA has a few more tricks up its sleeves that are bound to wow. We’re going to hit the ground running on the very first day of August, as we’ll be installing George Beattie’s controversial agriculture murals, which will be on display through Jan. 7, 2013. What else do we have, you ask? On August 18, we’re going to open not one, but three exhibitions to the public. First, we have “Francisco de Goya's 'Disasters of War',” which features all 80 prints from the master's series. Second, we have “The Epic and the Intimate,” a collection of French drawings dating all the way back to the late 1600s, on loan from the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame. Third, and this should really knock your socks off, the GMOA has made a recent purchase, and quite an incredible one at that, in “The New York Collection for Stockholm Portfolio,” a collection of prints compiled in the 1970s for a joint project between the artists and engineers of New York and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. The cherry on top that makes this acquisition so special? The edition we purchased was an original publisher’s proof, meaning it was never meant to go into stores with the other 300 copies. All of this is just in August—this summer was just a taste of what we have in store. There’s plenty more coming, so stick around!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Art for the Family

In my experience, I’ve noticed that individual members of a family tend to have different tastes in art. I personally enjoy looking at the work of Salvador Dalí and John William Waterhouse, while my sister prefers Claude Monet’s paintings. We do share similar tastes in music and books, but paintings and sculptures are things we’ve always had different opinions about. On a simpler level, this difference in artistic taste can be something as easy as one child liking a blue jacket with a green circle on it, while his or her sibling prefers one with a yellow circle on it.

We’re happy knowing that the works in GMOA’s collection inspire family debates and discussions, and, as much as we enjoy hearing different interpretations, we’d also like to have families bond over their similar pleasures in art. So, for Family Day on July 21, from 10 am to noon, we’re inviting families to have a look at the southern folk art from our permanent collection, then create some of their own. Discussing why you’re drawn to a specific art style is one thing—showing why you are is another. Not only do we want families to have fun together, but we’d also like to encourage them to understand each other better during this bonding experience.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Happy Birthday, James Whistler!

Whistler was born in Lowell, Mass., in 1834, and best known for his influence on artistic theory. Early on, Whistler was immersed in art. At the age of 11, he enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he did well, before moving back to London with his relatives in 1847.

Though his mother sent him to Christ Church Hall School with the hope that he would become a minister, Whistler felt that a career in religion was not for him. He applied to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where, though he was accomplished at drawing, his grades were poor and he flouted authority. After being dismissed from the academy, Whistler tried his hand at mapping the East Coast of the United States for military and maritime purposes, but was transferred to another division of the Coast Survey. He lasted only two months there before leaving for France to pursue art as his true calling.

Later in his career, Whistler became a leading proponent of “art for art’s sake,” an idea he shared with his friend and rival Oscar Wilde. He believed that art was not something that should strictly illuminate a moral purpose, but should instead serve as an extension of the artist’s persona and emotions. An example of his philosophy, the painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket,” was criticized heavily by the art critic John Ruskin. Whistler ended up suing Ruskin for libel. The artist won but he was only awarded a farthing (a quarter of a penny). The cost of the case and the debts accrued while building his residence caused Whistler to fall into bankruptcy midway through 1879.

"Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket"
James Whistler

Whistler continued to travel and produce art in Paris, London, and Venice. He went where he was commissioned, and his paintings sold well. He also published a book detailing his artistic ideals that, unfortunately, led to a complete breakdown of his friendship with Wilde. Whistler returned to London in 1896, when his wife was diagnosed with cancer; she died two months later. In the final years of his life, Whistler produced minimalist seascapes and corresponded with some of his old acquaintances. He founded an art school in 1898, but his poor health and infrequent teaching schedule led to its closure three years later. His health continued to decline and he died in 1903 on July 17.

The Georgia Museum of Art has a selection of Whistler’s art that highlights many of the qualities he worked to instill in his paintings. The canvases he produced act as his lasting contributions to artistic conversations and debates even today.

"Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1"
James Whistler

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

On Museums

I have found that art museums are, for the most part, fairly quiet places. They seem to operate on the same dynamics of a library. For example, though museum workers rarely will, the environment has somehow conditioned me to expect someone to raise a finger to their lips and “shh!” me if I breathe too loudly. When I read about the debates on the concepts of art during the 19th century—what is art? is art moral or immoral? is the artist insane for making a splatter-painting and asking $5,000 for it?—I imagine that many of these thinkers had lengthy and animated conversations in front of works of art and museum patrons. It seems like back then art museums used to be more warm and invigorating, their works the subject of thoughtful conversation. Today, museums have evolved into colder spaces for hushed whisperings and silent reflection.

Part of the museum experience is allowing the art to sink in and permeate your mind. I honestly can’t do that by just standing in front of a painting and looking at it in silence. Okay, so I understand that some people like to concentrate quietly on the painting before them, but I feel that many others like to delve actively into the art to make it more alive for them. Furthermore, talking about a painting or sculpture with others allows for different insights into the work. For example, I might only talk about the artist’s use of shadows and how they might reflect a darker personality, whereas one of my friends might point out the quality of light in the work and how it serves to illuminate the combat between good and evil. That interpretation actually widens my horizons on the matter, which is important when discussing the different messages a work of art can impart. And yes, we can talk about the painting outside the museum, but once you’ve seen more than 800 works, how can you bring that single canvas to the forefront of your brain (unless you’ve got a photographic memory, in which case, you’re incredibly lucky) and talk about it in detail?

So what can we do if we want to have those spirited gallery sessions of yesteryear? GMOA has programs for group tours and interactive art sessions. We’ve had a plethora of student groups who have already come through and there are other events such as Family Day for families to gain a greater appreciation for art through activities, discussions and seminars. We’ve even gone a step further to implement the Artful Conversation program, which invites patrons to join Carissa DiCindio, our curator of education, to discuss one of the pieces in the galleries—all of these certainly amount to a step in the right direction, but what about for the rest of the museum community? Should curators install soundproof glass chambers to separate the “talkies” and the “silents”? Should there be loud days and quiet days during the week? Or should each work be put online for viewers to scroll through and discuss/silently regard at their leisure? GMOA has even begun work on a new collections database that will eventually put many of its works online. Ironically, while there is no easy answer when it comes to art, the question still inspires very passionate discussion, which is a good start.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Happy Birthday, Salvator Rosa!

Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker born (June 20) in 1615 best known for being a proto-Romantic. Initially, his father had wanted Rosa to become either a priest of lawyer, and entered him into the convent of the Somaschi Fathers. Rosa, however, felt that art was his calling and began secretly working under the tutelage of his uncle to learn about painting. He then moved on to study under his brother-in-law who was, in fact, a pupil of Jusepe de Ribera, an eminent Spanish Tenebrist painter, before coming under the apprenticeship of either Aneillo Falcone or Ribera himself. It was during his apprenticeship that his father died, leaving the family destitute and Rosa without financial support.

Rosa earned money by selling his paintings cheaply through private dealers as he moved back and forth between Rome, Naples, and Florence. During this time he began producing the forerunners of Romantic paintings. Picturesque views of mountains and beaches were among his early landscapes for which he became well known. As well as painting, Rosa also wrote multiple satirical plays which gained him both favor and enemies, including Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the sculptor who originally designed the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome.

Rosa continued to paint and write until his final days, having fallen ill with dropsy, and he died in 1673. His legacy was, most prominently, the beginning stages of romantic painting, evinced by the picturesque works of J.M.W. Turner, who arrived in the art world about a century later. It is almost poetic, in fact, that Rosa should be remembered as one of the fathers of the romantic painting style, as his birthday just so happens to fall on the first day of the summer equinox. If you’d like an up close and personal example of Rosa’s work, especially today, the GMOA happens to have one of his paintings within the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Collection.

Salvator Rosa--Saint Simon the Apostle