German painter, called Rosa da Tivoli, member of a family of painters and etchers of which five generations painted animals, landscapes and portraits from the 17th to the 19th century, working in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria. The founding father was Johann Heinrich Roos, whose pastoralGLOSSARYRelating to a romantic or idealized image of rural life; in classical literature, to a world peopled by shepherds, nymphs, and satyrs. idylls introduced a BaroqueGLOSSARYThe period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Vermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories. The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies. style of landscape and animal painting into Germany.
Philipp Peter Roos was the son of Johann Heinrich. He went to Italy in 1677 on a bursary from the Landgrave of Hesse. In Rome he studied with Giacinto Brandi, whose daughter Maria Isabella he married in 1681, after adopting the Catholic faith. In 1684-05 he bought a house near Tivoli, which gave rise to his soubriquet 'Rosa da Tivoli'. From 1691 he seems to have lived mainly in Rome.
Roos was a member of the SchildersbentGLOSSARYA fraternal organization founded in 1623 by a group of Netherlandish artists living in Rome for social intercourse and mutual assistance. Its members called themselves Bentvueghels or 'birds of a flock' and they had individual Bentnames - for example Pieter van Laer, one of the early leaders, was called Bamboccio. In 1720 the Schildersbent was dissolved and prohibited by papal decree because of its rowdiness and drunkenness., which gave him the nickname 'Mercurius' because of the speed with which he painted. Apart from a Self-portraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). (c. 1695-1700; Florence, Uffizi), he painted exclusively domestic animals with their herdsmen in the Roman Campagna. The animals dominate the foreground, leaving only small glimpses through to landscapes set beneath louring skies. Roos applied his paint in impastos, rendering the coats, the stance and the movements of each species in a virtuoso manner. The light bodies of the animals seem to grow fascinatingly out of the darkness. In the 1680s Roos tended to depict small groups of animals - sheep, goats, often headed by a billy goat with twisting horns. The herders lie at the side dressed in coarse clothing, closely bound up with the animals. Far off, wildly precipitous valleys alternate with high cliff-faces lit by a yellow-brown light; the distant mountains are conveyed in tones of light blue. Altogether the pictures are characterized by a spectral, sombre, wild and daring boldness.
