Philipp Peter Roos detto ROSA DA TIVOLI (1657-1706)

RURAL SCENE (see the expertise of Prof. Giancarlo Sestieri in the image gallery) Oil painting on canvas, 90 x 113 cm – autograph work by Philipp Peter Roos, known as Rosa da Tivoli – in an antique carved and gilded wooden frame. Philipp Peter Roos, known as Rosa da Tivoli (Sankt Goar (Frankfurt am Main), August 30, 1657 – Rome, January 17, 1706), was a German painter and engraver of the Baroque period. He belonged to a well-known family of German painters and engravers: his father was Johann Heinrich Roos, the most important German animal painter of the 17th century. He arrived in Italy in 1677 with a scholarship from the Landgrave of Hesse, on the condition that he return to his court. However, ignoring the Landgrave's conditions, he never returned to Germany. He studied in Rome with Giacinto Brandi, whose daughter Maria Isabella he married in 1681, after embracing the Catholic faith. In 1684-1685 he bought a house near Tivoli, which earned him the nickname Rosa da Tivoli. Roos personally raised the animals he painted near this dilapidated house, which was therefore called "Noah's Ark." The house was located in the San Paolo district, still called "vicolo del Riserraglio" today. Gino Mezzetti, a local historian, wrote: “The name is derived from that barred environment, located in the silent square of the district, in which the German painter Philipp Roos, known as Rosa da Tivoli (because he worked especially in the Tiburtino area) locked up various beasts in a menagerie, which he then reproduced in his appreciated paintings, some of which are still in the Vatican Pinacoteca. The step from the animal enclosure to the "rinserraglio" and therefore to the "Riserraglio" is short. Vicolo del Pittore, in via del Duomo, also took its name from the artist, who lived in that small dead-end artery.” From 1691 he lived mainly in Rome, where he became a member of the Schildersbent (painters' clan) with the nickname "Mercurius", for the speed with which he executed his paintings and for the ease with which he painted. This speed of execution was particularly useful to him: in fact, often without money, he painted one or two paintings which he had his servant sell at any price in order to pay the inn bill. He lived in a deliberately free, rule-resistant and dissolute way and, as often happened, then as today, he died in poverty. Most of his works depict domestic animals with their herdsmen in the Roman countryside. The animals, as in our painting, are generally painted in the foreground and dominate the scene, while the landscape can be glimpsed below. Roos spreads his impasto painting, rendering the coats, positions and movements of each species with great talent. As can also be noted in the important painting that we propose here. In the years around 1680, the artist generally portrayed small groups of animals (sheep and goats, often led by a he-goat with curved horns), with shepherds on the side in rough clothes, near the animals. In the distance, wild valleys alternated with steep walls illuminated by a yellow-brown light; the distant mountains were rendered in shades of blue. Ancient ruins were often painted in the background. Around the 1690s, Roos mainly painted landscapes. Overall, his paintings are characterized by a spectral, gloomy, and wild tone. Furthermore, Roos managed to transform natural landscape motifs into unusual and dynamic visions. A direct representation of Nature, as an attentive and present observer on the spot, the solitary witness of the scene depicted. Although this artist generally painted landscapes and animals, he was nevertheless capable of creating more complex compositions, as evidenced by the drawing Deposition from the Cross, now at the Jean Paul Getty Museum in the USA. Other works of his are in Florence (Uffizi), Madrid (Prado), Dresden (Gemaeldegalerie), as well as in prestigious private collections. The style of Philipp Roos, a passionate man who was not inclined to compromise, reflected his working method. It was in fact characterized by the use of intense, sometimes almost rough brushstrokes and a strong contrast between light and shadow. This personal manner was quite popular and attracted various imitators. His reliable works are real portraits of domestic animals with shepherds in the Roman countryside. The animals, as we have seen, in the foreground, always the protagonists, the man smaller or absent, the landscape spacious and distant. Roos softly stirs an impasto painting, carefully painting the coats of the animals, in different positions and movements, with spontaneous compositions. In the 80s, in his early laborious maturity, Rosa composed small groups of animals, especially sheep and goats, led by a he-goat, with the shepherds in the background controlling the animals, within valleys and mountains of prevailing yellow-brown tones, painted with a creamy texture. In the background, blue mountains against pinkish skies and clouds. Sometimes, as backdrops, ruins of ancient buildings, in an Arcadian calm. Particularly intense works belong to this period, which have the above-described characteristics: dominant figures of the he-goat with twisted horns, the cow in the foreground, often the goat resting with the kid, sometimes a sheep flourishing with soft wool, in the background a rocky landscape, with ruins, rough and wild. Taken at sunset or sunrise, with the warm light of sunset or dawn that seems to originate, as if by magic, from the bottom of the painting. In the eyes of his goats there is a painful truth, an alternative consciousness of the world, a masked humanity. As Umberto Saba will say: “I spoke to a goat, / She was alone in the meadow, she was tied up. / Satiated with grass, wet / from the rain, she bleated. / That identical bleating was fraternal / to my pain. And I replied, first / jokingly, then because pain is eternal, / has a voice and does not change. / This voice felt / moan in a solitary goat. / In a goat with a Semitic face / I felt every other evil complain, / every other life”. Distant, in the background, grey and pink clouds, against the unmistakable blue sky. Fresh and dense the painting, as none renders the coat of the animals. Later, in the 90s, Roos will paint mainly landscapes. Together, all his paintings, a bucolic, and never metaphorical, epic of animals, in their quiet inhabiting of the world of men, tell of a parallel people, in remote and uncontaminated landscapes. Roos's painting is shown in lively and dense brushstrokes, with formidable and fragrant chromatic effects. Other animal painters, such as Domenico Brandi and Nicola Viso, have sometimes been mistaken, due to the genre, not to the unachievable quality of Philipp Roos, in the mimesis with respect to the true, with the master Rosa da Tivoli. In the flourishing workshop, also brothers and sons of the artist, as had been in the pastoral workshop of the Bassano, will continue, deliberately generating misunderstandings, to paint the same subjects. Prof. Giancarlo Sestieri, whose expertise we publish in the image gallery, is certainly one of the greatest scholars of this great artist, considered the most important exponent of the "bucolic and Arcadian" genre. Bibliography • Julius Samuel Held, Detroit Institute of Arts, “Flemish and German paintings of the 17th century”, 1982, pag.73-74-75 • Musée du Louvre, Frédéric Villot, “Notice des tableaux exposés dans les galeries du Musée impérial du Louvre”, pag.221 • Musée des beaux-arts, Clara Gelly, “Nancy, Musée des beaux-arts: peintures italiennes et espagnoles, XIVe-XIXe siècle”, 2006, pag.141-142