A Bridge Flanked by a Tower in the Roman Campagna, with Fisherman and Maidens in the Foreground,

ca. 1640

<p>Born in Calabria in southern Italy, Cozza was an important painter and frescoist of the Italian Baroque period, an era known for the use of contrast, movement, exuberant detail, and deep color to achieve a sense of wonder. As a young man he went to Rome and apprenticed with the artist Domenichino, whose work influenced other artists in the exhibition, such as Giovanni Battista Viola. As here, his landscape paintings recall the style of the <em>paesi con figure piccolo</em> (landscapes with small figures) popularized by the Carracci family in Bologna. In his mature period, Cozza worked side by side with other artists in the Wilder collection, such as Gaspard Dughet, who had in turn been a pupil of Nicolas Poussin, revealing the complex circles of exchange and influence in seventeenth-century Europe.</p>