Salvator Rosa

Exhibited by Matthiesen Gallery

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 200 x 119 cm

Status Vetted

About the Work

In what surely must be a position of uncompromising pain, Saint Paul the Hermit, dressed in a shirt of woven palms, stretches across a rock. His feet are bound to a tree and although his hands are tied at the wrists, he is still able to grasp a reed cross. At his side are the traditional books and skull associated with the ascetic meditation of hermits.

Together with the crucifix, which the saint holds, it indicates that he is contemplating the life eternal and the transience of a mortal existence. Paul of Thebes is called the first hermit. To escape the persecution of Decius he took refuge in a boundless desert, where he is reputed to have lived to an age well over a hundred.

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