01 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Interpretation of the bible, With Footnotes - 169

Bolognese School, Circa 1700

RINALDO AND ARMIDA 

Oil on canvas

48 1/4 by 35 7/8 in.; 122.6 by 91.1 cm.

Private collection

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

The Bolognese School or the School of Bologna of painting flourished in Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna, between the 16th and 17th centuries in Italy, and rivalled Florence and Rome as the center of painting. Certain artistic conventions, which over time became traditionalist, had been developed in Rome during the first decades of the 16th century. As time passed, some artists sought new approaches to their work that no longer reflected only the Roman manner. The Carracci studio sought innovation or invention, seeking new ways to break away from traditional modes of painting while continuing to look for inspiration from their literary contemporaries. This style was seen as both systematic and imitative, borrowing particular motifs from the past Roman schools of art and innovating a modernistic approach. More on The Bolognese School

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