MONSÙ ALTO
Rome, 1686 – ?, 1712
Landscape
oil on canvas, cm 37×75
This painting, probably intended for being installed above a door, considering the markedly horizontal format, features a landscape with the presence of water and ancient Medieval towers. Realized with a rapid and immediate technique, the artwork was part of a group of four paintings (two marines and two landscapes) attributed by the scholar Didier Bodart to the Roman painter Monsù Alto.
Monsù worked in Rome at the beginning of the 18th century, remaining a less-known artist. He specialized as a marine painter, even though he produced a limited number of works. Artistically similar to artists such as Salvator Rosa, Monsù was the teacher of the better-known artist Andrea Locatelli, representing with his paintings this canvas that taste for shady and contrasted landscapes, tending towards the picturesque, which gained recognition with artists as Pandolfo Reschi or Peruzzini, in opposition to the classical and idealized landscape of Emilian and French matrix.