1661
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Glaucus and Scylla is a 1661 by Salvator Rosa, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This painting shows a scene from a mythological story. The story is about Glaucus, a fisherman who becomes a sea god. He falls in love with a water nymph named Scylla, but she runs away. Glaucus was changed after drinking a magical herb, which made him immortal. This story comes from an old book called Metamorphoses by Ovid. Look up the technique of chiaroscuro.
Salvatore Rosa was a prolific and skilled printmaker, producing more than 100 etchings throughout his career. Derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses , Glaucus and Scylla tells a story associated with magic and witchcraft. After drinking a magical herb, the fisherman Glaucus was immortalized and transformed into a sea god with fins and a fish tail. Rosa depicts the moment in which the amorous Glaucus declares his love to the beautiful water nymph, Scylla, who flees. Later, Glacus implored the witch Circe to help him win the heart of Scylla, but attracted to the sea god herself, the jealous witch…
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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