Diplomatic World_69

include the St Cecilia in Ecstasy (1518, Pinacoteca in Bologna),
with its extraordinary foreground still-life of musical instruments;
the harmonious Alba Madonna (1510, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC); the late Madonna of the Rose (c. 1518-20, Museo
del Prado, Madrid), completed with the help of an assistant.
Raphael’s Madonnas have to be considered in two categories.
One comprising works done in Florence and the others in Rome.
The repeated compositional strategy (Leonardian triangles)
reveals a huge complexity of figural, postural, light-and-shade
and detail variation. Each Madonna undergoes emotional and
tonal changes, each unique, but everything relating to everything.
Other highlights are: the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (c.
1514-15) and the late Self Portrait with Friend (c. 1518-20), both
from the Louvre Museum.
Fresco, The School of Athens, 1509/11, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Palace
Raphael’s splendid experimentation culminated in 1507 with his
painting, ‘La Belle Jardinière’. That same year, Raphael created
his most ambitious work in Florence, ‘The Entombment’, which
his art is the paragon of ideal perfection and aesthetic excel-
was reminiscent of the ideas which Michelangelo had expressed
lence.
in his ‘Battle of Cascina’.
Esterhazy Madonna , panel 28,5 x 21,5 cm(1508) Museum of Fine Arts Budapest,
inv. 71 can be juxtaposed with a preliminary drawing from the Uffizi illustrated
hereunder (pricked for transfer, but not for the Esterhazy painting), this indicates
Raphael’s combinatorial and cumulative approach.The painting is more monumental
than the draft. The changes are subtle, but significant.
Madonna del Grandluca, panel 84,4 x 55,9 cm (c.1505-06) © Palatine Gallery,
Uffizi inv. 1912 n° 178.
Raphael moved to Rome in 1508. Under Pope Julius II’s patronage,
from 1509 to 1511, Raphael realized one of the High
Renaissance’s most highly regarded fresco cycles in the
Raphael’s trajectory from Urbino to Rome, implies to study his
use of sources and their emulation by him. It explains his creative
process, starting with a quickly drawn sketch (primo pensiero),
followed by studies of figures. Then followed a compositional
Vatican’s Stanza della Segnatura, including: ‘The Triumph of
study and other nude studies to precise individual figures. The
Religion’ and ‘The School of Athens’. Here, Raphael expressed
modello in chalk (or the cartoon) prepared the finished painting
In 1494, brought up by his uncle, a priest, Raphael took over the
influenced by Perugino. Two year later, he attacks effortless
the humanistic philosophy learned early at the Urbino court.
(or fresco/tapestry).
daunting task of managing his father’s workshop. Rapidly, he
a much more complicated and extra-large composition, ‘The
Raphael painted another fresco cycle in the Vatican in the
understood the art of learning from others. As a teen, he made
his earliest paintings for churches in the nearby Umbrian cities
of Città di Castello (Church of San Nicholas) and Perugia. His
Coronation of the Virgin’ (Pala Oddi, 1504, 267 x 163 cm Vatican
Museums), in a less theatrical style. While painting the ‘Mond
Crucifixion’ (circa 1502), The ‘Three Graces’ (circa 1503), ‘The
Stanza d’Eliodoro, featuring ‘The Expulsion of Heliodorus’,
‘The Miracle of Bolsena’, ‘The Repulse of Attila from Rome’ and
‘The Liberation of Saint Peter’. In Rome in the night of 6 on 7
ARCHITECTURE
success quickly surpassed his father’s and won him major public
Knight’s Dream’ (1504), he supplied drawings to other artists for
April 1520, Raphael’s 37th birthday, he died suddenly after 8
By 1514, Raphael had achieved fame for his work at the Vatican
commissions. Raphael’s precocious ability to fuse minute obser-
them to use, such as for his friend Bernardino di Betto, called
days of extreme fever, while working on his largest painting on
and was able to hire a crew of assistants to help him finish paint-
vation and rich imagination into elegant designs made him one of
Pintoricchio (c. 1454-1513). The latter, who introduced Raphael
canvas, ‘The Transfiguration’ (commissioned in 1517). At his
ing frescoes in the Stanza dell’Incendio, freeing him up to focus
the finest painters in town.
in Perugia, was the first artist to take a serious interest in the
funeral mass at the Vatican, his unfinished painting was placed
on other projects. While Raphael continued to accept commis-
decorative painting of antiquity (grotesque), after the rediscovery
on his coffin stand. In less than five years, he established himself
sions – including portraits of Popes Julius II and Leo X, he had
Late 1501 or early 1502, Pietro Vannunci known as Perugino
of the Domus Aurea, Nero’s Palace (r. AD 54-68), then under-
as the city’s major artist, much to the fury of Michelangelo.
begun to work on architecture. After architect Donato Bramante
(1469-1523), invited Raphael, then active in Città del Castello,
ground as in a ‘grotto’.
died in 1514, the pope hired Raphael as his chief architect.
to become his apprentice in Perugia (Umbria), when Perugi-
His tapestry designs (to be seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum,
Under this appointment, Raphael created the design for a chapel
no worked on frescoes at the Collegio del Cambia. Raphael is
In 1505, Raphael left Perugino and moved to Florence, where he
London) excel by their virtuosity, challenging the craftsmanship
in Sant’ Eligio degli Orefici. He also designed Rome’s Santa
documented there in January and March 1503. The apprentice-
was heavily influenced by the works of the Italian painters Fra
of the Brussels weavers. He became an explorer and curator of
Maria del Popolo Chapel and an area within Saint Peter’s new
ship lasted four years until late 1505 and changed his style, now
Bartolommeo, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Masaccio,
Rome’s art and architecture of Antiquity and engaged with art
basilica. Raphael’s architectural work was not limited to religious
showing a more intense engagement with Perugino than before.
without being overruled by them. He animated his figures with a
theory. Together with his friend and scholar Baldassare Castigli-
buildings. It also extended to designing palaces, honouring the
Raphael developed his unique painting style through observa-
sense of emotional intimacy and restraint, adopting at the same
one, he wrote a letter to Pope Leo X explaining his project to pre-
classical sensibility of his predecessor, Donato Bramante, and his
tion, admiration of others’ achievements, his love for Antique
time Michelangelo’s dynamic expressiveness. Capturing the
serve antique architecture (X11725, Archivo di Stato di Mantova).
use of ornamental details. They defined the architectural style of
sculpture and drawing after nature and in anatomical theatres.
power of a mother’s love for her child, he initiated there a series
He became the architect of the reconstruction of the ‘Rome of
the Late- Renaissance and Early-Baroque periods.
of ‘Madonnas’, establishing a new devotional canon of delicate
the Caesars’. In 1514, Pope Julius II hired Raphael (31 years old)
But already early on, the contribution of his assistants, apparent-
sensual tempered beauty which lasted over centuries. Raphael
as his chief architect, at the moment he completed his last
All photos: Jan DE MAERE
ly local artists, is adamant in the execution of the subsidiary parts
produced these through the emulation of Leonardo da Vinci’s
painting in his series of the “Madonnas,” ‘the Sistine Madonna’.
of his works, as we see in the ‘Colonna Altarpiece’ (1504/05).
work. Raphael’s best-loved Madonnas are: the melancholic
Raphael was buried in the Pantheon, admired and revered by
One of his early works is the ‘Resurrection of Christ’ (panel 56,5
Madonna del Granduca (Firenze, c. 1505-06)—and the idealised
popes, cardinals, princes and artists all over Europe for his
x 47 cm, 1499/1500, Museo de Arte Sao Paolo) is still strongly
beauty, La Donna Velata (Rome, c. 1512-15). Other highlights,
clear-sighted vision on his art and that of his time. Even today,
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