PICTURES
Marriage of the Virgin
The Marriage of the Virgin (1504) by Raphael demonstrates the full understanding of
linear perspective that had developed by the High Renaissance. Raphael was
influenced by both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, but his work has its own
unique sense of balance and clarity.
Bridgeman Art Library
Madonna of the Goldfinch
Madonna of the Goldfinch (1505) is an early example of the series of Madonnas that
Raphael painted throughout his life. The influence of Leonardo da Vinci on
Raphael can be seen in the way the faces are depicted and in the use of chiaroscuro (dark and light contrasts).
However, Raphael's handling of dark and light is subtler than the chiaroscuro
of Leonardo's work.
Bridgeman Art Library
School of Athens
The School
of Athens (1510-1511) is one several frescoes that Raphael painted
for the Stanza della Segnatura, in the Vatican. The fresco, which depicts
Plato and Aristotle (centre), as well as other ancient Greek philosophers and
scholars, marks the mature style Raphael achieved during his years in Rome (1508-1520). The
work is considered a masterpiece in the use of perspective and in the portrayal
of the artistic ideals of the High Renaissance.
Scala/Art Resource, NY
Raphael
Drawing
Subtle
shading, giving the illusion of voluptuous, rounded shape is characteristic of
the work of Raphael. Like many other Renaissance drawings, this one, in red
chalk, was probably a preparatory study for a future painting.
Scala/Art Resource, NY
Raphael (painter) (1483-1520) (properly,
Raffaelo Sanzio), Italian painter who was one of the leading artists of the
Italian Renaissance He created many of the most significant paintings of the early
16th century and his art was extremely influential for centuries after his
death.
Raphael was born in Urbino
on March 28 or April 6, 1483. His father, the artist Giovanni di Santi, worked
mainly for Francesco Gonzaga in Mantua, and Raphael spent his youth in a courtly
environment. In 1500, so Vasari records, Raphael was apprenticed to Perugino, a highly respected artist who was one of the first in Italy to paint
extensively in oil. He employed pure strong colours for his
figures, which were imbued with a particularly sweet air of piety, often
setting them in landscapes infused with pale, shimmering light.
Raphael's early paintings include large altarpieces as well as smaller works, both devotional and secular, many of
them made for the court at Urbino. One such is a small panel painting, St George Slaying the Dragon (c. 1505,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.); it seems to be connected with
Guidobaldo da Montefeltro's election to the Order of the Garter in 1504 and is
remarkable for its miniature precision and the knowledge of the work of the
Flemish painter Han Memling that it displays. Raphael's earliest large-scale
paintings were executed in Città di Castello, which was a day's ride from
Urbino. Works such as the Sposalizio
(or Marriage of the Virgin) (1504,
Brera, Milan) and the Coronation of the Virgin (c. 1503, Vatican
Museum, Rome) demonstrate Perugino's influence in
their static composition and sweet figure style. Although intentionally similar
in composition to earlier works by Perugino, Raphael's paintings already
possessed a dynamic spatial quality that is lacking in the former's work, and
his consummate technical mastery and idealizing imagination led to his working
in competition with his former master on altarpieces in Perugia, for instance
the Ansidei Altarpiece (1505,
National Gallery, London) made for Bernardino Ansidei for the chapel of St
Nicholas of Bari in the Servite church of San Fiorenzo.
Raphael's visit to Florence in about 1504 seems to have been motivated by
his desire to see the work of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci,
perhaps in order to improve his skills in areas such as anatomy and perspective, where he was still inexpert. He did not settle there but visited
frequently between 1504 and 1508. His work during these years was extremely
varied in nature and scale, ranging from the series of madonnas he painted for
individuals, such as the Small Cowper
Madonna (c. 1505, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) to the
large-scale religious works commissioned for churches, such as The Entombment (1507, Borghese Gallery,
Rome).
Raphael's style developed fully during the years 1504-1508. He
lost Perugino's air of sweetness and developed a bolder, more monumental manner
that was partly inspired by the works of Fra Bartolommeo.
While his madonnas were idealized portraits of tranquil women, he also painted
real sitters; in La Muta (c. 1507,
Ducal Palace, Urbino), the subject's finger extends to press against the
picture frame, creating an arresting and original pictorial device that
reinforces the analogy that a painting is akin to a window.
During his period in Florence,
Raphael was influenced by the pyramidal compositions of Leonardo, as can be
seen in La Belle Jardinière (c. 1507,
Musée du Louvre, Paris). This is one of a series of paintings of the Virgin and
Child, often with St John
the Baptist, in an
outdoor setting. Leonardo's influence is also apparent in the Bridgewater Madonna (c. 1507, Duke of
Sutherland Collection, on loan to National Gallery of Scotland); here, the
Virgin's sweetly smiling expression and contraposto
(twisted) pose are derived from Leonardo, while the pose of the Infant Jesus is
derived from Michelangelo.
In 1508 Raphael was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II
in order to decorate a suite of offical rooms in the Vatican known as the Stanze. He
started with the Stanza della Segnatura, the office in which documents were
sealed, producing a series of frescos concerned with different aspects of the human
intellect. The most famous of these, the School
of Athens (1509-1511), represents groups of Greek philosophers in a monumental Classical setting. Despite the great number and
variety of figures, the painting has a remarkably balanced, unified
composition, dominated by the eloquently gesturing figures of Plato and Aristotle in the centre. The other frescos in the Stanza,
representing theology poetry,
and law, have a similarly harmonious quality, which
also characterizes the Stanza dell'Eliodoro (1511-1514). This was followed by
two further rooms, which were mostly executed by Raphael's assistants, in
particular Giulio
Romano, who were
also responsible for painting the Vatican Loggie, completed in 1519. During
this period Raphael also produced a series of cartoons
(1515-1516, Royal Collection, on loan to the Victoria
and Albert Museum,
London) for tapestries that were to be hung in the Sistine Chapel. These memorable
compositions, representing scenes from the lives of St Peter and St Paul, were to be enormously influential on later
artists.
As well as working for the papacy, Raphael also received important
commissions from private patrons, in particular the banker Agostino Chigi, for
whom he decorated two chapels, at Santa Maria della Pace (c. 1512-1513) and
Santa Maria del Popolo (1516). For Chigi he also adorned the Villa Farnesina
with sensual mythological frescos depicting Galatea (c. 1511) and scenes from the story of Cupid and Psyche (1516-1517), the latter painted so as to create
a trompe l'oeil effect of tapestries suspended overhead.
Raphael's interiors were profoundly influenced by the grotesque style of
ornamentation inside the Domus Aurea, the recently excavated palace of the
Roman emperor Nero. This is particularly apparent in the stuccoed
loggia of the Villa Madama, built by Raphael for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici
(begun c. 1518). Raphael also experimented with profuse decoration on an
exterior in the (now destroyed) Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila. Such works
contrast greatly with the austere beauty of Sant'Eligio degli Orefici, a small
church, in the form of a domed Greek cross, which was designed by Raphael and
(probably) Bramante around 1509. While the church's lucid
geometrical structure and restrained decoration typify the High Renaissance,
the later buildings clearly anticipate the complexity of Mannerism. During this period Raphael also produced memorable works on
panel and canvas, including a number of portraits: these included a remarkably
frank depiction of the aged Pope Julius
II (c. 1511, National Gallery, London), as
well as Pope Leo X and Two Cardinals
(c. 1519, Uffizi, Florence)
and the nobleman Baldassare Castiglione
(c. 1516, Musée du Louvre, Paris). Raphael also executed a number of
extraordinary altarpieces, including the celebrated Sistine Madonna (c. 1513, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), a magnificent image of the Virgin
and Child appearing among radiant clouds, above two of the most engaging putti
(cherubs) in Renaissance art. Equally extraordinary is The Transfiguration (1517-1520, Vatican,
Rome),
completed by Giulio Romano after Raphael's death, which greatly influenced the
crowded, dynamic compositions of later Mannerist painters.
Raphael's death in Rome
on April 6, 1520, cut short an immensely successful and productive career. His
work exemplifies the confidence and originality of the High Renaissance. Like
Michelangelo, he produced works of supreme harmony and grandeur, while also on
occasion introducing qualities that would later be associated with Mannerism.
Through the engravings of Marcantonio
Raimondi, his
compositions became widely known throughout his lifetime, and his influence on
academic painters in subsequent centuries was inestimable.
