Bandits on a Rocky Coast 1655 - 1660

Curator: Salvator Rosa painted this work, Bandits on a Rocky Coast, sometime between 1655 and 1660. Editor: The palette strikes me immediately – all turbulent blues and browns, really mirroring the jagged scene. Curator: Yes, Rosa cultivated a reputation for the unconventional and the "sublime" during this period. Think about how artists had been perceived; Rosa wanted to show a type of heroic artist operating outside social norms. It reflects a societal fascination with bandits and brigands at the time. Editor: These figures certainly do seem deliberately posed, perhaps glamorized even. Looking closer at how Rosa layers his paints, though, it is amazing. The earthy pigments – ochres and umbers – he must have had access to create that mood... What do you think this says about art production then versus now? Curator: I see this piece speaking to a need for order in painting that existed in society. He takes these supposedly lawless subjects, and organizes them into an accessible, even moralistic display. The coastal landscape behind becomes both a backdrop and a stage, where these complex dramas play out for the aristocratic classes who purchased the paintings. It's theatre for elites. Editor: Theater indeed. It is hard to believe so much narrative could come out of a canvas worked up by hand and the grinding of color. From the cloth in their garments to that rock jutting into the sea – this object required so much labor, material sourcing, and intellectual thought! Curator: Yes, Rosa leveraged painting traditions to further position the artist as a rebellious, intellectual figure. A complicated message given who consumed these images. Editor: Exactly. Seeing how material concerns relate to larger sociopolitical questions really puts Rosa's efforts into context for me. Curator: And for me, seeing Rosa's social climbing ambition laid bare through these types of genre scenes truly contextualizes how patronage systems worked. Editor: Quite the thing of material ingenuity and narrative art.