13 Works, Today, April 21st is artist Annibale Carracci’s day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #110
Rinaldo and Armida, c. 1601
Oil painting on canvas
154 × 233 cm
National Museum of Capodimonte , Naples
Armida is a fictional character created by the Italian late Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso. She is a Saracen sorceress.
In his epic Gerusalemme liberata, Rinaldo is a fierce and determined warrior who is also honorable and handsome. Armida has been sent to stop the Christians from completing their mission and is about to murder the sleeping soldier, but instead she falls in love. She creates an enchanted garden where she holds him a lovesick prisoner. Eventually Charles and Ubaldo, two of his fellow Crusaders, find him and hold a shield to his face, so he can see his image and remember who he is. Rinaldo barely can resist Armida’s pleadings, but his comrades insist that he return to his Christian duties. At the close of the poem, when the pagans have lost the final battle, Rinaldo, remembering his promise to be her champion still, prevents her from giving way to her suicidal impulses and offers to restore her to her lost throne. She gives in at this, and like the other Saracen warrior woman, Clorinda, earlier in the piece, becomes a Christian and his “handmaid”. More on Armida
Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) was the most admired painter of his time and the vital force in the creation of Baroque style. Together with his cousin Ludovico (1555–1619) and his older brother Agostino (1557–1602), each an outstanding artist, Annibale set out to transform Italian painting. The Carracci rejected the artificiality of Mannerist painting, championing a return to nature coupled with the study of the great northern Italian painters of the Renaissance, especially Correggio, Titian, and Veronese.