Armida Encounters the Sleeping Rinaldo

This is a big oil painting on canvas, more than six feet tall and over seven feet wide. It shows a moment from a story. A beautiful sorceress named Armida has come upon a knight called Rinaldo while he sleeps. She decides to carry him away on her chariot, which travels on clouds. The scene opens onto a wide sky and a landscape, with rocks and trees around the figures. Weapons and a helmet are part of the picture too, reminders that Rinaldo is a warrior. Look for the two figures first, then let your eye drift outward into the sky.

Notice how the artist has arranged everything to keep your eye moving. The figures, the swirling draperies, the clouds and the trees are all carefully placed so the whole picture feels alive. Look at the paint itself, too. It is thick and creamy in places, and the colors seem to sparkle, almost like bubbles. Find the weapons and the helmet that belong to the knight, and compare their hard, solid shapes with the soft clouds and flowing cloth around them. That contrast is part of the picture's charm.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painted this around 1742 to 1745. It likely hung with several others in a large hall at the Palazzo Corner in Venice. A palazzo is a grand city house. Together, the paintings told the sad love story of Armida and Rinaldo, taken from a poem by Torquato Tasso published in 1581, called Jerusalem Delivered. Tiepolo was known for skilled drawing combined with a painting style that looks quick and spontaneous. That suited the huge works he made to decorate palaces and churches across Italy, Germany, and Spain.

The poem is set during the First Crusade, when Christian knights tried to take control of Jerusalem. When Rinaldo wakes, he falls for Armida at once and forgets his mission there. So the story is about the clash between love and duty. Yet Tiepolo's version seems to care only about the spell of love. He gives us a magical world of shimmering color and rich paint. Look a little longer at the sky around the sleeping knight, and ask yourself whether you see any duty here, or only enchantment.