The Death of Regulus (Primary Title)
Salvator Rosa, Italian, 1615 - 1673 (Artist)
Although ancient accounts do not discuss the actual method of Regulus’s execution, Rosa shows him about to be enclosed in a spike-studded barrel, which would be rolled down a hill causing Regulus to be impaled on the spikes. Regulus’s dignity in facing his death at enemy hands was considered a model of Stoicism, an ancient philosophy of self-denial that was revived by 17th-century European intellectuals. The windswept, rocky setting and the figures’ emphatic gestures reflect the horror of the event.
Rosa’s dramatic history paintings and landscapes influence the Romantic painters of the 19th century. This painting is widely considered one of Rosa’s most ambitious and successful evocations of the sometimes barbaric customs of the ancient world.
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