Angelica and Medoro 

Giovanni Battista Cipriani made this drawing of Angelica and Medoro with graphite on paper in the late 18th or early 19th century. It depicts a scene from Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso, a popular source for artists at the time. But why this story? In 18th-century England, where Cipriani spent much of his career, there was a growing interest in stories of love and heroism, which reflected the values of the Enlightenment, when people started to question traditional hierarchies. Cipriani here is working within an idealized classical style which was promoted by institutions such as the Royal Academy, of which he was a founding member. However, the narrative content is sentimental and modern. We might consider it as a kind of compromise between progressive and conservative tastes. To fully understand this drawing, we can study the literature that inspired it, and also look into the history of the Royal Academy. Art is never made in a vacuum.