Eyes ablaze with inspiration: an idea takes shape while a pen is held poised above the open book. That is how the Italian painter Girolamo Troppa (1637 – circa 1710) depicted his poet-philosopher. The fire and untamed ferocity of creativity is clearly conveyed by the fiery eyes and the tousled beard. The poet-philosopher leans across a book whose pages he is about to fill with great thoughts. The text of the book cannot be deciphered, except for a single line – the artist’s signature.
Troppa’s poet-philosopher is one of a series of four paintings featuring half-length portraits of emotionally agitated men, enraptured by the forces of creative imagination or religious pathos. The paintings are nocturnal scenes in which the moon stands out as a bright nimbus against dark clouds in a blue-black sky. The paintings were purchased for the Danish king Frederik III (reign 1648–72) as ‘Four portraits of ancient philosophers’, but now we identify the four men as Homer, Virgil, John the Baptist and The Penitent St Peter.
