Rinaldo and Armida - bubligum9000 — LiveJournal. Poussin Nicola Poussin Rinaldo and Armida
Rinaldo and Armida (c. 1630), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
In the late 1620s and early 1630s, Poussin painted several paintings based on the famous epic poem "Jerusalem Liberated" by the great Torquato Tasso. First published in 1580-81, this poem immediately attracted the attention of many artists, who saw in it an inexhaustible reservoir of dramatic subjects for their work. The poem talks about the battle for Jerusalem between Christians and Saracens during the First Crusade, which took place at the end of the 11th century. In addition to the actual battles and details of military life, several love stories are interspersed into the poem. One of them tells the story of the Christian knight Rinaldo and the beautiful Armida, who was a sorceress and river nymph who fought on the side of the Saracens. Rinaldo lies immersed in a witch's sleep. He is defenseless before Armida, and she can easily fulfill her plan - to kill the young man. But the nymph, seeing Rinaldo’s beautiful face, was inflamed with passion for her enemy and did not dare to use her dagger. This is one of Poussin's most poetic paintings, distinguished by its rich color and surprisingly free manner. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of the customer for this painting. The history of its creation remains a mystery - it was first discovered only in 1804.
Ended with the capture of Jerusalem and the founding of the first Christian kingdom in the Middle East. The poem consists of 20 songs of varying lengths, written in octaves.
History of creation
The first drafts of the poem appeared around 1559; then it still bore the name “Jerusalem”. In 1565, systematic work on the poem began, which lasted ten years. In 1575, Tasso presented the generally completed work to his patron, Duke d'Este. He, admiring what he had read, demanded that the work be published immediately, but the poet, extremely demanding of himself and experiencing a severe spiritual crisis, refused to publish it. Meanwhile, passages from “Jerusalem” were widely distributed in the lists; pirated publications began to appear, full of errors, inaccuracies and editorial arbitrariness. Finally, Tasso, who was at that time imprisoned in the hospital of St. Anna as a “violent madman,” allowed the original text of the poem to be published. In 1581, the first editions were published in Parma and Ferrara, reflecting the author's will; at the same time, Tasso changed the title of the poem to “Liberated Jerusalem” - under this title it appeared a year earlier in one of the illegal publications.
In 1593, Tasso, still dissatisfied with his work (which by that time enjoyed unprecedented success), published Jerusalem Conquered ( La Gerusalemme conquistata) - a radical reworking of the poem. Having increased its volume by 4 songs, the poet made numerous changes in the plot and language of the work, consistently excluding and reworking episodes that seemed to him too frank or deviating from classical aesthetics. Tasso, who was at the papal court at that time, sought to strengthen the religious pathos of the poem and voluntarily submit to the demands of critics who pointed to the “un-Christian spirit” of his work. Despite all the efforts of the author (even writing an “apology” for the new version of the poem), this version was rejected by both readers and subsequent critics.
Plot
The historical basis of the work is the conquest of Jerusalem during the First Crusade; at the same time, events develop according to the laws of the heroic epic and knightly poem.
Archangel Gabriel announces to the knight Gottfried of Bouillon the will of God, angry that the Holy Sepulcher is still in the hands of infidels: Gottfried must lead the crusading army and liberate Jerusalem. This news initially causes indignation among the crusaders, for many surpass Godfrey in the nobility of their family and courage on the battlefield. But Peter the Hermit, revered by the warriors for his great wisdom, calls on them to recognize the new leader, and the next day the army, consisting of the best knights of the Christian world, sets off on a campaign to the walls of Jerusalem.
The news of the approaching army causes horror among the rulers of the East. The king of Egypt is trying to pay off the crusaders. His vassal, the ruler of Jerusalem Aladin, a cruel persecutor of Christians (whose prototype is Saladin, who lived a century later), rallies the best warriors of the Islamic world around him and decides to defend the city. During the first assault, the Circassian giant Argant and the warrior maiden Clorinda stand out among the Muslim heroes; among the Christian knights are Godfrey himself, Tancred and Rinaldo, "son of the Italian soil." Having already reached the city walls, the leader of the crusaders stops the attack, sensing that the time to take the city has not yet come.
Characters
The asteroid (282) Clorinda, discovered in 1889, is named after Clorinda from the poem.
The asteroid (514) Armida, discovered in 1903, is named after Armida.
The asteroid (705) Erminia, discovered in 1910, is named after Erminia.
In music
Composers and librettists have repeatedly turned to Tasso's poem. C. Monteverdi owns the large theatrical madrigal “The Battle of Tancred and Clorinda” (first performance in 1624). The poem formed the basis for the libretto of many baroque and classical operas, including “Erminia on the Jordan” by M. Rossi (premiere in 1633), “Armida” by J. B. Lully (libretto by F. Kino, 1686), “Rinaldo” by G. F. Handel (libretto by D. Rossi, 1711), Armida by A. Salieri (libretto by M. Coltellini, 1771), the opera of the same name by K. V. Gluck (1777), as well as operas by D. Cimarosa (1777), J. Haydn (1784), D. Rossini (1817) and many other composers.
In painting
Stories about Rinaldo and Armida were popular among Italian and French artists of the 17th-18th centuries; they are depicted on canvases
Rinaldo and Armida are a pair of lovers from the Italian epic poem "Jerusalem Liberated" by Torquato Tasso (1544-1595). First published in 1580-81, this poem immediately attracted the attention of many artists, who saw in it an inexhaustible reservoir of dramatic subjects for their work.
The poem "Jerusalem Liberated" is an idealized account of the First Crusade, which ended with the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 and the establishment of the Christian kingdom. In addition to the actual battles and details of military life, several love stories are interspersed into the poem. One of them tells the story of the Christian knight Rinaldo and the beautiful Armida, who was a sorceress and river nymph who fought on the side of the Saracens.
P. Ballarini Meeting of Armida and Rinaldo 1754
Wanting to weaken the forces of the crusaders, the Damascus king-magician Idroad sends his beautiful niece, the sorceress Armida, to the crusaders’ camp. Falling in love with the young knights, she draws them away from the Christian army. Rinaldo, a stronghold of the crusaders, also gets caught in Armida’s net.
After Rinaldo saves his comrades, whom Armida turned into monsters, the sorceress wants to take revenge on him.
But in the end, captivated by Rinaldo's beauty, Armida falls in love with him and takes him to the island. To return him, two warriors are sent to the island. The warriors find Rinaldo in Armida's magical garden and hold a shield to his eyes so that he can see in it, as in a mirror, that he is neglecting his duties. Rinaldo leaves the sorceress and returns to the battle.
Nicolas Poussin The Exploits of Rinaldo 1628
These events form a sequence of scenes in a pastoral atmosphere, which gained wide popularity among Italian and French artists of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Near the Orontes River (Syria), Rinaldo came across a marble column on which was an inscription inviting the passerby to discover the wonders of a small island lying in the middle of the river. Here Rinaldo fell into a magical sleep. Armida “hurries to him to take revenge,” but at first sight she falls in love with him.
Nicolas Poussin Rinaldo and Armida 1629
The sorceress Armida entangles the sleeping Rinaldo with magical bonds of flowers - lilies and roses - and transfers him to her chariot. Then they go to a distant island, lost in the ocean, where everything blooms with unprecedented beauty. In the joys of love, the famous knight forgot about his high duty.
Anthony Van Dyck Rinaldo and Armida 1629
Nicolas Poussin Rinaldo and Armida 1625-6
A COMMENT:
On canvases, Rinaldo is usually depicted lying on the bank of a river, he is in armor, next to him is his helmet and weapons. Armida kneels in front of him, peering into his face. Her chariot is depicted in the background, and nearby there is a column with an inscription. The god of the river Orontes reclines with his elbows on an overturned urn.
Armida is usually depicted as carrying Rinaldo, assisted by her maid. Or she stands in a chariot, while her companions lift her body, usually entwined with garlands of flowers. Or she races in a chariot across the sky to her island in the ocean, carrying away a sleeping knight. Usually her chariot is drawn by horses and only in rare cases by dragons, which are mentioned in the text of the poem.
Otto Müller Armida's Garden
Meanwhile, the Crusaders are going through difficult times. And the final victory of the Christians depends on the return of Rinaldo. Then Gottfred sends several knights to search for the disappeared hero. They reach the island of Armida, avoid danger (wild animals are the guardians of the island), and pass the labyrinth palace. Not succumbing to the temptation of the nymphs bathing in the stream, they resolutely continue on their way until they find themselves in a marvelous garden and come to the place where “a magnificent table was laid” under a tree.
There they find Rinaldo in Armida's arms.
Anthony Van Dyck Carlo and Umbaldo find Rinaldo in the arms of Armida 1634-35.
A COMMENT:
A favorite theme in art, which is based on this fragment of the poem, which tells how the warriors approached the lovers, located in the shade of trees on the shore of the lake. Peering into the eyes of his beloved and seeing his reflection in them, Rinaldo, at the same time, holds a mirror in front of her, which she put in his hand: everyone sees his own image at the moment of love ecstasy - he burns with passion (“he is proud of slavery”), she - ironic (“she is proud of power”).
This is how they are depicted: Rinaldo, bending over her knees, his head on her chest, he looks into her face and at the same time holds a mirror. Two warriors look at what is happening, hiding in the bushes or behind a tree. Armida's palace can be seen in the background.
Giovanni Batista Tiepolo Rinaldo and Armida in the Garden 1752
Francois Boucher Rinaldo and Armida 1734
Francesco Hayez Rinaldo and Armida 1812-13
One of the arriving warriors places a diamond shield in front of Rinaldo.
Rinaldo glanced at this shield
And I saw my reflection in it,
What an unusual look for a man!
The shameful figure and attire breathe laziness,
And even the sword is so entwined with flowers,
That you are his decoration,
I'm ready to consider it a useless toy,
And not a weapon that is dangerous to enemies.
(Canto XVI, octave 31. Translated by O. Rumer)
Seeing his reflection in the shield, called upon by his brothers in arms to fulfill his duty, Rinaldo understands the depth of his fall and leaves the island. As their boat set sail, Armida stood on the shore and begged him to stay, and then cursed him when she saw that his pleas were in vain.
Angelika Kaufmann Rinaldo leaves Armida 1776
Giovanni Batista Tiepolo Rinaldo leaves Armida 1755
Giovanni Batista Tiepolo Rinaldo leaves Armida 1757
Poussin said: “The theme must be noble... the content and plot must be majestic...” Poussin was attracted by heroic deeds, “sublime passions,” something that could serve as an example of moral standards; he wanted to create an image of an ideally beautiful world, where a harmonious person reigns, perfect in body and spirit.
The composition “Rinaldo and Armida” (1630) belongs to the most remarkable works of the museum collection. The plot is taken from the poem “Jerusalem Liberated” by the 16th century Italian poet Torquato Tasso. One of the episodes tells how the sorceress Armida, in whose possession Rinaldo found himself, wanted to kill the knight, but, captivated by his beauty, fell in love with the young man and took him to her gardens. The main theme is the power, the greatness of feeling; and love, in which the best qualities of a person are revealed,
equated by Poussin with a heroic, noble act.
Together with the heroes, we are transported into the world of poetry and enchanting beauty. The heroes are beautiful, they look like ancient sculptures. In the figure of Armida, bending over the sleeping Rinaldo, there is a rush of admiration and tenderness. The servant girls walk lightly in the clouds and we admire the flexibility and slenderness of their bodies. The sun pours light on the lovely cupids merrily playing with the knight's armor. The River Deity reclines majestically - in the lower right corner of the picture.
Armida is a villain, but we don’t see this at all, her face is so beautiful and not a single line emphasizes her evil intentions.
Three groups of participants in the composition are inscribed in rectangles, and all together - in a pyramid. Armida leaned over Rinaldo, admiring his beauty and thought that it would be nice to rush away with him. She is a sorceress and her thoughts are fulfilled immediately - a chariot appears in the clouds, ready to carry Armida with her lover - this is the third group.
The construction of the composition here is also thought out to the smallest detail. The chariot that appears in the clouds does not fly anywhere and will not fly away, it will remain within the framework of the picture. The column on the right stops her movement. Visually, the chariot will continue to spin at the top of the canvas.
The figure of the old man was clearly redrawn from an ancient statue - his body with all its muscles is so powerfully written.
Here again the same color scheme is visible, the flow of the same colors, their repetition in all groups, Poussin’s blue, red, gold. This color scheme sounds most strongly in the group of main characters and is muted in the rest of the picture. The color seems to be filled with the jubilant happiness of the passionate feeling that awakened in Armida. In other parts of the composition, color plays along with the main characters.
At the same time, Poussin interprets this plot quite freely. It is known that in fact there should only be one cupid, or cupid. There are several of them here. And the Deity of Water is introduced into the composition so that we recognize the scene of action - the Aron River.
Get acquainted with creativity.
Inflamed with hatred of the crusader Rinaldo, the sorceress Armida decides to destroy him. The young knight comes to the shore of Oronto, where the river, dividing into two branches, flows around the island, and sees a white marble pillar with an inscription inviting the traveler to the wonderful island. A careless young man, leaving his servants, gets into a boat and is transported to the island. Here, to the sounds of magical singing, he falls asleep and finds himself in the power of Armida. But the sorceress, captivated by the beauty of the knight, is unable to carry out her evil intent - love has taken the place of hatred in her heart. Weaving light chains of flowers, Armida entangles the sleeping Rinaldo with them, carries him into her chariot and flies overseas to the distant island of Happiness. There, in the enchanted gardens of Armida, where spring reigns forever, lovers enjoy each other until the envoys of Goffredo, the leader of the crusaders, having overcome many obstacles, free Rinaldo from love captivity. Called by a sense of duty, the knight leaves his beloved.
The painting, which belongs to the collection of the Pushkin Museum, depicts an episode when Armida, without taking her eyes off the knight who captivated her, tries to carefully lift Rinaldo in order to transfer him to the chariot. The painting thus highlights only a fragment of the poetic text. However, this fragment, receiving structural expression in a new artistic dimension, loses its fragmentary character and acquires the features of an autonomous text. As such, we will try to consider Poussin’s painting.
The stage is inscribed in a horizontal format, its proportions close to a rectangle. This format, taken by itself, suggests a static structure rather than a dynamic one. However, the vertical-horizontal division of the plane in the present case is not dominant. Breaking the “calm” of the format, Poussin sharply emphasizes the diagonal division. A classic dynamic composition scheme is set.
It is characteristic that the “active” diagonal was chosen as the dominant direction - from the lower left corner to the upper right. N. Tarabukin characterized the properties of this diagonal, which he called the “diagonal of struggle”: “It does not have a too fast pace. The movement unfolds slowly because it encounters obstacles along the way that require overcoming. The overall tone of the composition sounds major.” Meyer Shapiro associates this diagonal with the “climbing effect.” It should be added that the components located at the junctions of the dominant with contrasting directions have the “strongest” position in the image plane.
In Poussin’s painting, where the dominant diagonal is used as the axis of action development, “strong” positions are occupied by two groups - the main characters and the group with the chariot.
The above scheme mainly determines the rhythmic organization of the image. Two groups of linear repetitions are easily fixed in the picture: the dominant diagonal group (the figure of a river god, a stream of water, a chariot, horses, a cloud, etc.) and a contrasting group of “obstacles” (a tree trunk in the upper left corner, the figure of Armida, female figures driving a chariot, etc.). Their interaction organizes the whimsical configurations of object forms and connects multi-dimensional elements in the pictorial plane. Less pronounced, as already noted, is the vertical-horizontal division. It seems significant, however, that the figure of Rinaldo is included only in the details of its construction in the energetic interaction of the diagonals, generally obeying the rhythm of the horizontal divisions and thus being the most “passive” of the figures.
Considering the structure of the picture “in depth”, we can, with a certain convention, distinguish three main plans: the first, which corresponds to the allegories of the river and stream, the second - Rinaldo, Armida and the Cupids, the third - the group with the chariot. The first plan is rhythmically juxtaposed with the third, while the diagonals are given different directions: in the foreground - from the right and from top to left and down (by the flow of water), on the third - from the left and from bottom to right and up (by the movement of the chariot). Further, the foreground figure of the river god is turned with his back to the viewer, while the female figures in the third plan are shown facing the viewer. There is an effect of mirror image of the near and distant plans in each other. The space of the picture is closed, and the middle ground receives a strong emphasis. The constructive emphasis of the background is emphasized by the profile position of the figures of Rinaldo and Armida, presented vis-a-vis.
Color tonal organization of the painting
The color-tonal organization of the painting is closely related to the overall compositional structure. Color and light accents are placed at the vertices of a triangle that unites figures of different spatial plans, and are brought into harmony in a rhythmic scheme. Revealing the striking positions of this scheme, light and color act as regulators of the “intonation” of the image: the contrasts of red, blue and golden-yellow in the second and third groups sound like exclamations. It is characteristic that in striking positions the color is cleared of impurities, approaching the local color. Regarding light, it is important to specifically note that its “entry” into the picture is subject to the direction contrasting with the dominant diagonal: from top left to bottom right. In the cited work by Tarabukin, this direction is interpreted precisely as an “entry diagonal.” “On this diagonal, the participants in the action usually enter in order to remain within the picture space.” From Shapiro's point of view, this is a diagonal of descent.