"Rarely did I enter into his studio that I did not notice a few new books on the side-table, others piled high upon the stools, and on the floor, his beloved Tasso – all worn out and poorly bound from daily use. The painter would beseech whomsoever happened to stop by while he was painting to read aloud entire scenes, hearing again and again the laments and reversals of Clorinda, Armida, and Tancred, all the while imprinting these noble ideas on his mind. Sometimes he would make us begin again the just completed reading. Speculating and reflecting on these passages, he knew how to extract from them thoughts, never before imagined by anyone else, which, no less than delighting, instructed even the most learned among us."
Jonathan Unglaub attempts to convey the status of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata as a universally familiar cult-book in 17th-century Italy. Its romances and adventures were common currency, and few artists failed to use them. Unglaub identifies eight "distinct compositions" by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) based on scenes and characters from Tasso.
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| Nicolas Poussin Victory of Goffredo of Bouillon c. 1626-29 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
"Poussin adheres to his contemporaries' predilection for representing the amorous interludes of Tasso's epic instead of its principal action recounting the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade. Only one early drawing, the Victory of Goffredo of Bouillon at Windsor, illustrates a martial subject. The panoramic battle scene centers on the final triumph of the supreme Christian commander. Otherwise Poussin concentrates on the loves of Rinaldo and Armida, Tancred and Erminia."
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| Nicolas Poussin Rinaldo and Armida c. 1626-27 Pushkin Museum, Moscow |
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| Nicolas Poussin Rinaldo and Armida c. 1628-30 Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
"The versions of Rinaldo and Armida in Moscow and Dulwich present a nearly identical instant when the pagan sorceress approaches the slumbering Christian knight. She had intended to slay her adversary but, instead, falls hopelessly in love, mesmerized by the beauty of his somnolent features. The next scene, the Abduction of Rinaldo in Berlin, depicts Armida about to transport her still unconscious lover, bound in floral chains and borne by putti, to her luxuriant hideaway in the Fortunate Isles."
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| Nicolas Poussin Abduction of Rinaldo 1637 Staatliche Museen, Berlin |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Companions of Rinaldo c. 1633 Metropolitan Museum of Art |
" ... in the Companions of Rinaldo at the Metropolitan Museum, the knights Carlo and Ubaldo, dispatched by Goffredo to retrieve Rinaldo from the clutches of Armida, confront the horrific serpent that guards the path to her enchanted palace and garden. Two drawings in the Louvre, one an intense and highly dramatic mise-en-scène, present the successful outcome of their mission. In these studies for an Abandonment of Armida, the sorceress, who has fainted in grief, lies on the shore as the knights whisk her paramour, and their champion, onto an awaiting boat."
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| Nicolas Poussin Abandonment of Armida c. 1648 drawing Louvre |
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| Nicola Poussin Abandonment of Armida c. 1648 drawing Louvre |
"Paintings in Saint Petersburg and Birmingham dramatize the desperate love of the Saracen princess Erminia for the wounded crusader Tancred. In both, Erminia heroically wields Tancred's sword and severs her golden tresses to serve as an improvised bandage to bind the wounds of her beloved, while the more profound ones of her heart remain untended."
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| Nicolas Poussin Tancred and Erminia 1630 Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Nicolas Poussin Tancred and Erminia c. 1634 Barber Institute, Birmingham |
This book bestowed an exceptional favor in leading me to the final painting in this sequence, the Tancred and Erminia of the middle 1630s in Birmingham. Poussin manifestly used this picture as a stage for homage to his transcendent predecessors, Raphael and Titian. It passes comprehension how (up to the present) I managed to remain ignorant of this painting's existence. A new and crucial picture by an absolutely crucial artist – such gifts do not arrive often enough.