If you would like to see his work, please link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael
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| Raphael |
Raffaelo Sanzio was born in 1483 in the small town of Umbria, situated in the artistically important Italian Duchy of Urbino. His well timed birth positioned young Raphael, as he came to be known, in the right place and the right time to become one of the most significant artists of the Italian High Renaissance.
Raphael was the son of an important yet provincial artist, and his father's recognition of Raphael's nascent artistic talent and training as a painter must have begun as soon as the youth was able to hold a stub of chalk in his hand. Sadly, both his mother and father were dead by the time Raphael was eleven, at which time the young artist was apprenticed to the studio of Pietro Perugino, a talented and well established master.
Raphael quickly absorbed the lessons of Perugino, and became so adept at his master's (stiff, static) style that later works by the elder (Crucifixion with the Virgin, St. John, St. Jerome, and St. Mary Magdalene, 1485 - [Raphael would have been only 2 when he would have painted this... he was good, but probably not that good.]) were mistakenly attributed to the young artist. Having completed his apprenticeship in 1501, the 18 year old Raphael began taking commissions for small cabinet paintings, altar pieces and other religious work, gaining a legendary reputation as a draftsman of the highest caliber.
His first significant commissioned painting was The Marriage of the Virgin (1504). This painting was very similar to the same scene executed by Perugino while Raphael was working in his studio, however, in his version, Raphael manages to improve on his master's work, creating a more believable and naturalistic image. In an act of confident, youthful brio, Raphael signed the work boldly in the center (on the architrave of the background building, just above the entry door) announcing to the world that he is the fresh new talent on the rise.
It was in 1504 that Raphael went to Florence, where he was exposed to work by Leonardo Da Vinci; ever adapting, Raphael soon began incorporating elements of Leonardo's painting and compositional style into his work. Like a sponge, Raphael wrung from himself the old, stodgy methods of Perugino, and quickly absorbed and began releasing into his own work the brilliance of Leonardo.
Dispite his youth, Raphael was becoming a great painter of women, capturing in his work not only their physical presence, but also his subject's interior emotions. As he continued to develop his own, distinctive aesthetic, Raphael kept adding to a series of intimate, yet startlingly vivid Madonna portraits, whose tender renditions would come to define just one small thread of his oeuvre.
In 1508, when he was only 23, Raphael was called to Rome by Pope Julius II, receiving what is arguably one of the most significant commissions in art history, at first five, then the rest of the murals that were being planned for the Papal Apartments in the Vatican.
It was in Rome that Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroto collided, and, with Pope Julius as chief puppeteer, these brilliant men were cast in an artistic duel that would come to define the High Renaissance in all of its excessive, competitive glory.
Having inherited his large and lavish apartments in the Vatican from his predecessor, the powerful Pope Julius II was eager to remake his living quarters over in his own taste, and to remove all traces of the previous Pontiff. Every important artist in Italy was seeking an appointment to participate in this massive redecorating project, and Raphael was not the only one chosen by the Pope.
Although he was gaining a reputation as an accomplished portrait painter, Raphael had almost no experience in fresco painting when the Pope summoned him. In a stroke of very good fortune (and probably some exchange of favors), Raphael was recommended to the Pontiff by his (Raphael's) kinsman, Donato Bramante, who just happened to be the powerful and influential architect in charge of the new St. Peter's Basilica.
At first, Raphael was directed to fresco only the walls of the Papal library, an important room which was used for the official execution of documents as well as clerical meetings. After Raphael's treatment, this chamber became the most significant room in the suite, and is now known as the spectacular Stanza della Segnatura.
Theology, Jurisprudence, Poetry and Philosophy are the subjects of the four murals on the walls of the room, which were specifically planned and frescoed by Raphael himself. In addition to the four walls, the ceiling is also beautifully gilded and decorated with motifs corresponding to the themes below each section.
The chamber is laid out with The School of Athens - 1509-11 (Philosophy) positioned in the preeminent location, on the East wall. On the opposite, West wall, Raphael painted The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament -1508-9 (Theology). The lesser North and South walls feature the Parnassus - 1510 (Poetry), and The Cardinal Virtues - 1511 (Jurisprudence). Each of the walls in the room feature a recessed half dome or arch, which Raphael uses to excellent effect in his compositions.
In all of the compelling and theatrical scenes for this room, Raphael cleverly populates the Papal chambers with a cast of dramatically rendered real and mythologic characters, each symbolizing an important concept in western thought and knowledge as it was contemporarily defined. And what a party it was. Just the first page of the guest list for Raphael's fete included: Aristotle, Plato, multiple cupids, Apollo, Homer, Sappho, 9 beautiful muses, Fortitude, Temperance and Prudence, Epicurus (he probably catered the event) Euclid, Ptolemy, Pythagoras, Adam, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Moses and even Jesus Christ and his Father. Raphael thoughtfully included a cameo of the fellow who got him the commission, immortalizing his great debt to Bramante. In other words, anybody who had ever been anybody found their place at Raphael's party for the Pope.
In the most famous of the paintings (The School of Athens 1509-11), Raphael cheekily sneaks in his own self portrait, gazing directly out from the picture plane at the viewer, while in the midst of a lively discussion by the world's great mathematicians. Evidence suggests that he also made a last minute addition to the painting, by inserting a presumed portrait of Michelangelo as an aloof brute, cast in the role of Hericlitus. In the first historical account of the Renaissance Artists, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Giorgio Vasari intimated that this homage or slap of Michelangelo may have been Raphael's reaction to seeing the great painter's work in progress on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
In The Disputation fresco opposite, Raphael skillfully demonstrates his mastery of the newfound technology of linear perspective within the framework of a triple scene spanning earth and two levels of the heavenly realm. Earth is depicted in the context of a convincing rectilinear scene, with a box like altar and well proportioned floor decoration offering a convincing recession of the space. Above, heaven is all curves, with soft clouds holding aloft the most important and venerated figures in Christian theology, and gentle ovals are deployed as a glowing mandorla (around Christ) and the very vault of heaven above the Supremely positioned God the Father.
To describe these compositions as merely complex would be a dramatic understatement. Raphael addressed the blank walls with mathematical precision, placing his symbolically significant figures in magnificent trompe-l'oiel settings. But that triumph, while significant, is not what makes these works so important to our own study of art and culture. Raphael's genius was his cinematic ability to imagine.
Many skillful leaders know to surround themselves with the smartest people in the room; but thanks to Raphael's contribution, Pope Julius was able to allegorically and physically surround himself with the smartest people of all time. There is little doubt that this juxtaposition must have been very flattering and pleasing to the Pope - once he saw his new library, the Pope immediately charged Raphael to fresco the rest of the the rooms in the apartment, as well.
Perhaps it could be argued that the greatest achievement displayed on the four walls of the Stanza della Segnatura was Raphael's depiction of the interaction of his figures; the individuals presented in the room could not have been contemporaries, yet Raphael brings them all together, solidly revealing them in a lively engagement - sharing ideas, exchanging thoughts, gossiping, joking and learning from one another. Scientists, mathematicians, poets, muses, saints and Gods - all seem to be engaged in interesting conversation, not only with each other, but, ostensibly, with everyone in the room, including the living visitors.
The preeminent 20th Century artist Pablo Picasso, who was clearly influenced by the work of Raphael, famously said: "Good artists copy, Great artists steal..." and, like the interaction of all of the characters in Raphael's famous room, the young artist's work there shows the "stolen," incubated, and newly minted ideas of Raphael, his contemporaries and his own personal discovery of the great art, ideas and culture that preceded him. In just five compositions, Raphael celebrates the continuity of western thought, and the profound concept that culture is collaboration.
It is this insight (which he seems to have understood from the moment he started painting), that puts Raphael squarely in the Pantheon of quintessential Renaissance Men. The Stanza is not just four beautifully painted walls filled with perfect perspective and interesting people. The Stanza is a manifesto which Raphael uses to communicate the way he thought, understood information, and responded to the world.
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