The Italian painter and poet Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) was one of the innovators of romanticism. His best-known paintings represent scenes of wild, untrammeled nature, populated with small genre figures.

Salvator Rosa was born in Naples on July 21, 1615. He first studied painting with his uncle, Domenico Greco, then with Jusepe de Ribera, and finally with Aniello Falcone. In 1640, after spending some time in Rome, Rosa moved to Florence, where he worked as a painter for the Medici court. In Florence he met Lucrezia, who became his mistress, and the poet Giovan Battista Ricciardi, who became his lifelong friend. Finding himself ill-adapted to court circles, in 1650 Rosa returned to Rome, this time permanently. There, on March 4, 1673, he married Lucrezia, with whom he had lived most of his adult life. Eleven days later he was dead.

Rosa emerges as a strangely touching figure, proud, melancholic, and fiercely independent. Alone among the...