A Matter of Life and Death: The Paintings of Salvator Rosa at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Salvator Rosa, (1615 - 1673), Jason Charming the Dragon, (about 1665-1670), Oil on canvas, 78 x 66.5 cm, coll., The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness and Magic is at Dulwich Picture Gallery from 15th September to 28th November 2010. For details, go to dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

A fascinating exhibition of one of the key artists who helped to shape many other painters from Romanticism, is at Dulwich Picture Gallery until November. In these works there are references to witches, murder, fantastical journeys, landscapes and portraits. These works also reflect on the popularity of superstition and fascination with death. You can see the influence on artists who were to follow Rosa some one hundred and fifty years later in the works of Francisco Goya, John Martin and William Blake.

Click here for an article by James Hall for the Guardian newspaper, which is very interesting.

Salvator Rosa, detail from 'Witches at Their Incantations' by Salvator Rosa. Photograph: © National Gallery, London