Banditti in a mountainous landscape
John Hamilton Mortimer British
Not on view
Mortimer’s imagination shaped British art between 1765 and his early death in 1779. During his last decade, he served as President of the Society of Artists, an exhibiting body that preceded the Royal Academy. Here Mortimer’s admiration for Salvator Rosa’s wild sensibility is evident in a strikingly vertical mountain landscape. Blasted trees, a gushing mountain torrent and rocky cliffs frame a ledge occupied by a band of banditti, or outlaws. Such figures were often appeared in Rosa’s paintings and Mortimer first exhibited a bandit subject in 1772, then continued to explore the theme in oil, pen and ink and etching for the remainder of his career.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
