Henri Fantin-Latour

Fantin-Latour met Degas shortly after Degas’s return to Paris from Italy in 1859, and they became lifelong friends and colleagues. Fantin-Latour was among the artists and writers who congregated for lively debates at the Café Guerbois.

Fantin-Latour was drawn to the idea of capturing musical themes in visual terms. Rinaldo was inspired by an 1868 Brahms cantata for male chorus and orchestra whose text was derived from Goethe’s translation of Tasso’s epic poem of 1581 about the First Crusade, Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Liberated). In RISD’s drawing, the fictional Christian knight Rinaldo renounces the Saracen sorceress Armida and leaves her enchanted island to rejoin his troops.