The National Gallery of Scotland has recently acquired a couple of paintings by the 17th century Italian painter, Salvator Rosa. One is a wild landscape with St Anthony and a Hermit. It would be tempting to see the figures as little more than incidental decoration in a landscape, perhaps giving a sense of scale. But I think there's more to it...
'A word for me, father?'
Perched before a fissure in the earth's solidity,
they penetrate the deepest darkness with a word.
This gash-tomb is home for one who seeks only light.
'How can I give you a word when all I know is the weight of silence?
Should I have you live as I do?
Is there anything I can say that would lead you to believe that
in this hard place
one may find in the soul
a receptive softness
like earth?
And yet I will give you a word: "attend"!'
And so he went on
to find his own rocky place,
his own rupture in the unmoving hardness,
a place, indeed, to see how one measures up against the massiveness of it all,
a place to attend
to watch
to wait
to meet.
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