European School (c. 1750) - Rinaldo And Armida

Oil on canvas. Antique canvas relined and restored in the mid-20th century. This work, an oil on canvas in the style of a mid-18th-century European school, represents a sophisticated exercise in Neo-Baroque, integrating the formal lessons of the Seicento through the prism of late refinement. The composition is organized around a truncated pyramidal structure to stage a key passage from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered: the epiphany of the sorceress Armida before the knight Rinaldo on the battlefield. The iconographic heart of the painting lies in the dialectic of the gaze established by an octagonal mirror, held by a chorus of pearly-skinned putti. This object functions as a metapictorial device where the octagon, a symbol of transition, acts as the threshold of seduction where Rinaldo loses his martial identity, linking the tradition of Baroque vanitas to an instrument of psychological captivity that annihilates the heroic will. Regarding the figures and their costumes, the knight is depicted in an attitude of respect and submission, kneeling before the supernatural presence and stripped of his lance, which lies in the foreground, a metaphor for the soul's vulnerability in the face of Eros. His armor, executed with a technical blueing and luminous reflections inspired by Venetian art, creates a striking contrast with the ethereal figure of Armida, who seems suspended in a splendor of clouds. She is enveloped in an iridescent white drapery, whose mimetic movement reinforces her dominion over the elements and her magical nature. Finally, the stylistic context reveals that, although the work retains the robustness and dramatic chiaroscuro inherited from the tradition of Rubens and Pietro da Cortona, a transition toward Rococo is already perceptible in the softness of the tonal transitions and the softening of features. The expected warlike background is sacrificed in favor of an intimate and enveloping darkness. - Image dimensions without frame: 95 x 63 cm / 113 x 81.5 cm with exclusive custom-made frame.