A Large Tree 1615 - 1673

Curator: What an extraordinary drawing. Its gnarly texture makes me think of an etching rather than just a humble sketch. Editor: Definitely looks like an old soul. It’s the kind of tree I’d happily spend an afternoon reading under, despite all those suspiciously twisty branches! Curator: It's indeed evocative. This drawing is attributed to Salvator Rosa, and we know it as, simply, "A Large Tree". Rosa made it sometime between 1615 and 1673, in ink on paper. He lived and worked in Italy at this time. Rosa had a fascinating career – soldier, poet, actor, printmaker and of course, a painter and draughtsman. Editor: Jack of all trades, master of nature? This has got all the hallmarks of those baroque landscapes where you’d wander in nature and meet hermits or discover overgrown ruins in hidden corners. Did he actually rough it in the woods like a 17th-century Bear Grylls to produce this? Curator: He cultivated a rather rebellious persona; a sort of “artistic bandit” figure and he’s celebrated for these rugged landscapes but scholars think that actually he worked on his studies in his studio not outdoors in the wild! His images were more the product of invention and theater. He understood how to work the art market, essentially crafting his own image. Editor: Well that’s a shame, but figures! It is interesting though, because I do feel a tension here. There’s all that chaotic Baroque drama… but then he's also making close observations. Those individual leaves seem so tenderly observed, he gets at that beautiful branching structure. Curator: Yes. Rosa helped shape an emerging taste for a wilder aesthetic in art and landscaping. It helped, certainly, that in England his images were collected by folks involved in radical politics, like the republicans and Whigs, as it boosted that 'rebellious' angle, but even royalty like Charles I liked and bought his work. He hit this perfect storm, really. Editor: It all comes back to the market, right? Even "artistic bandits" need patrons. Still, it's fascinating how a simple tree study can be tangled up in such a web of meanings – nature, rebellion, artifice. Food for thought! Curator: Indeed, thinking about what appears as an authentic representation and how constructed and cultivated these images can be.