Armida Encounters the Sleeping Rinaldo
Artist: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696–1770)
Date: 1742-1745
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
Description
This painting illustrates Torquato Tasso’s popular sixteenth-century epic romance Jerusalem Delivered, which is set in the eleventh century, during the First Crusade, when Western knights sought to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. The canvas captures the moment of Rinaldo’s seduction: the beautiful sorceress Armida has just arrived to divert the sleeping hero from his crusade. Accompanied by her attendant nymph and a cupid figure, she appears like a beautiful mirage, enthroned on a billowing cloud, her drapery and shawl wafting gently behind her. Altough Tasso’s story symbolizes the conflict between love and duty, Tiepolo’s depiction of a magical, bucolic world - enhanced by effervescent colors, luminous atmosphere, and dense, creamy paint - seems to evoke only love’s enchantment.
