Landscape with a herdsmen 1635 - 1650

Salvator Rosa created this etching titled ‘Landscape with a herdsman’ sometime in the mid-17th century. Rosa was Neapolitan, from a part of Italy then under Spanish rule. Rosa challenges the established artistic conventions of his time. Artists were expected to create idealized landscapes, demonstrating the harmony between humanity and nature. Instead, Rosa shows nature’s indifference to human concerns. Here, a herdsman and his cattle cross a body of water surrounded by wild, overgrown vegetation. This is no cultivated park; it's a vision of untamed nature. Rosa was fascinated by the lives of peasants and bandits, people living outside the bounds of urban society. Rosa's etchings, widely circulated, were a radical challenge to the social norms of his time. We can find out more about this artist by looking at the archives of the art academies which, ironically, later embraced him as a model of artistic genius.