The Cleveland Museum of Art presents 'The Novel and the Bizarre: Salvator Rosa's Scenes of Witchcraft'

Scenes of Witchcraft: Day, about 1645–49. Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615–1673). Oil on canvas; w. 54.5 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1977.37.2

CLEVELAND, OH.- The Cleveland Museum of Art presents, The Novel and the Bizarre: Salvator Rosa’s Scenes of Witchcraft, a focus exhibition showcasing the museum’s four Scenes of Witchcraft by the Italian artist, Salvator Rosa. The exhibition explores how these paintings reflect the Florentine traditions of satire, burlesque and the macabre. These four tondi, or circular artworks, reveal Rosa’s interest in literary and philosophical traditions, antiquity, magic, satire and a desire to create images of novel subjects. The exhibition, organized by guest curator Hannah Segrave is on view in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery from February 15, 2015 through June 14, 2015.

“Scenes of Witchcraft have always been shown together in a series, so this is the first time visitors will get the chance to truly scrutinize these paintings individually,” said Segrave. “One of my hopes for this show is that people will spend some time really looking at each of these paintings on their own in order to discover the whimsical and gruesome details that can all too easily go unnoticed. Close looking at these paintings will lead to a deeper understanding of the diverse visual culture of witchcraft in the 17th century.” 

The Novel and the Bizarre: Salvator Rosa’s Scenes of Witchcraft features 21 works of art, including six paintings by Rosa alongside several prints and drawings of occult imagery from the 15th through the 17th centuries, including Hans Baldung’s The Bewitched Groom (1544), Jacques Callot’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1635) and Albrecht Dürer’s The Four Witches (Four Naked Women) (1497). These works provide visual context for Rosa’s images, while underscoring his originality regarding the traditional iconography of witches and magicians found in prints circulating throughout Europe at the time. 

The exhibition reveals how Rosa’s stay in Florence and these Witchcraft scenes signal a turning point in his career, and influenced the fashioning of his artistic identity. Rosa was fiercely committed to his independence and originality and obsessed with promoting his reputation as a great painter of history, philosophy and morality. The oil painting, Ruins in a Rocky Landscape (1640), and a pair of landscape drawings establish Rosa’s early reputation within the Roman landscape tradition. Prints and a satirical drawing made after Rosa returned to Rome in 1649 reveal how he adapted the themes and tone of his Witchcraft paintings to his grand ambitions for his work in Rome. The show culminates with the richly symbolic Genius of Salvator Rosa, on loan from the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College and the arresting Self-portrait on loan from the Detroit Institute of Arts, artworks that give a face to this noble, mysterious and melancholic genius.