Salvator Rosa (1615--1673) was a colorful and controversial Italian
painter, talented musician, a notable comic actor, a prolific
correspondent, and a successful satirist and poet. His paintings,
especially his rugged landscapes and their evocation of the sublime,
appealed to Romantic writers, and his work was highly influential on
several generations of European writers. James S. Patty analyzes Rosa's
tremendous influence on French writers, chiefly those of the nineteenth
century, such as Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, George Sand,
and Théophile Gautier. Arranged in chronological order, with numerous
quotations from French fiction, poetry, drama, art criticism, art
history, literary history, and reference works, Salvator Rosa in French
Literature forms a narrative account of the reception of Rosa's life
and work in the world of French letters.