1662
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Diogenes and His Cup is a 1662 by Salvator Rosa, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A man in rags kneels in a sunlit clearing, cupping water in his hands. Behind him stands Diogenes, tossing aside a wooden cup after seeing a boy drink this way. This was a real guy, a Greek philosopher who hated luxuries. The artist shows him rejecting even a simple cup. If this kind of bold stance interests you, check out Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615–1673).
Diogenes was an ancient Greek philosopher who valued poverty and shunned worldly goods, to the extent that he discarded his drinking bowl when he observed a youth drinking water from cupped hands, as depicted here. The print was made by the eccentric Neapolitan artist Salvator Rosa, who rejected conventional patronage in order to focus on themes that interested him. The placement of the narrative within a lush landscape is typical of Rosa’s approach, as is the emphasis on the unconventional principles of his subject, with which he identified.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Salvator Rosa (1615 – 15 March 1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticised landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th century.
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