So who was this genius Raphael?
Raphael
- Master painter and architect of the Italian High Renaissance.
Raphael is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican in Rome. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.
Raffaello Santi, known as Raphael, or Raphael of Urbino, was born in Urbino on Good Friday 6 April 1483, the son of Magia di Battista di Nicola Ciarla and Giovanni Santi di Pietro. His father was a painter and poet at the court of Frederico da Montefeltre, one of the most famous princes and art patrons of Early Renaissance Italy. It is believed that Raphael learnt the fundamentals of art in his father's studio. Raphael had a precocious talent right from the beginning and was an innate absorber of influences. Raphael was apprenticed to Pietro Perugino who was an early influence on his style.
Raphael, Allegory (The Knight's Dream). c.1503-1504. Oil on panel.
In 1504, Raphael moved to Florence, where he remained until 1508. These years were very important for his development. He studied works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo there, by which he was greatly influenced. He could adapt from others what was necessary to his own vision and reject what was incompatible with it. In Florence he started his series of Madonnas, whose charm has captured popular imagination ever since. Within four years Raphael had achieved success in Florence and his fame had spread abroad.
By the autumn of 1508, he was in Rome and was entrusted by Pope Julius II with the decoration of the Stanze, the new papal apartment in the Vatican Palace. The third room was probably finished by his assistants after his sketches in 1514-1517. Other important commissions in this period include frescoes and the decoration of Loggie of Vatican Palace.
Raphael, Judgment of Solomon (ceiling panel). 1509-1511. Fresco. Vaticano, Stanza della Segnatura, Rome
Under the new Pope Leo X Raphael held an important position in the papal court. Besides combining positions of painter, architect (he was Chief Architect of St. Peter's cathedral) and archaeologist, he initiated the first comprehensive survey of the antiquities of Rome. Although Raphael's main task during this period was to decorate Stanza, he still found time for a subject, which preoccupied him for a long time: Madonna and Christ Child. He created 10 cartoons for the tapestries, ordered by Leo X for the Sistine Chapel, 7 of which have survived and now in Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The tapestries themselves were woven by Pieter van Aelst and are now in the Vatican Museums.
The Transfiguration (c.1519-1520), was the last work Raphael painted. It was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici. Raphael died unexpectedly on Good Friday 6 April 1520. The Transfiguration was complete. Vasari wrote: "He was laid out in the room where he last worked, and at his head hung his painting of the transfigured Christ, which he completed for Cardinal de' Medici. The contrast between the picture, which was so full of life, and the dead body filled everyone who saw it with bitter pain."
Raphael is out of favour today; his work seems too perfect, too faultless for our slipshod age. Yet these great icons of human beauty can never fail to stir us: his Vatican murals can stand fearlessly beside the Sistine ceiling. The School of Athens, for example, monumentally immortalizing the great philosophers, is unrivalled in its classic grace. Raphael's huge influence on successive artists is all the more impressive considering his short life.
- Master painter and architect of the Italian High Renaissance.
Raphael is best known for his Madonnas and for his large figure compositions in the Vatican in Rome. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.
Raffaello Santi, known as Raphael, or Raphael of Urbino, was born in Urbino on Good Friday 6 April 1483, the son of Magia di Battista di Nicola Ciarla and Giovanni Santi di Pietro. His father was a painter and poet at the court of Frederico da Montefeltre, one of the most famous princes and art patrons of Early Renaissance Italy. It is believed that Raphael learnt the fundamentals of art in his father's studio. Raphael had a precocious talent right from the beginning and was an innate absorber of influences. Raphael was apprenticed to Pietro Perugino who was an early influence on his style.
Raphael, Allegory (The Knight's Dream). c.1503-1504. Oil on panel.
In 1504, Raphael moved to Florence, where he remained until 1508. These years were very important for his development. He studied works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo there, by which he was greatly influenced. He could adapt from others what was necessary to his own vision and reject what was incompatible with it. In Florence he started his series of Madonnas, whose charm has captured popular imagination ever since. Within four years Raphael had achieved success in Florence and his fame had spread abroad.
By the autumn of 1508, he was in Rome and was entrusted by Pope Julius II with the decoration of the Stanze, the new papal apartment in the Vatican Palace. The third room was probably finished by his assistants after his sketches in 1514-1517. Other important commissions in this period include frescoes and the decoration of Loggie of Vatican Palace.
Raphael, Judgment of Solomon (ceiling panel). 1509-1511. Fresco. Vaticano, Stanza della Segnatura, Rome
Under the new Pope Leo X Raphael held an important position in the papal court. Besides combining positions of painter, architect (he was Chief Architect of St. Peter's cathedral) and archaeologist, he initiated the first comprehensive survey of the antiquities of Rome. Although Raphael's main task during this period was to decorate Stanza, he still found time for a subject, which preoccupied him for a long time: Madonna and Christ Child. He created 10 cartoons for the tapestries, ordered by Leo X for the Sistine Chapel, 7 of which have survived and now in Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The tapestries themselves were woven by Pieter van Aelst and are now in the Vatican Museums.
The Transfiguration (c.1519-1520), was the last work Raphael painted. It was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici. Raphael died unexpectedly on Good Friday 6 April 1520. The Transfiguration was complete. Vasari wrote: "He was laid out in the room where he last worked, and at his head hung his painting of the transfigured Christ, which he completed for Cardinal de' Medici. The contrast between the picture, which was so full of life, and the dead body filled everyone who saw it with bitter pain."
Raphael is out of favour today; his work seems too perfect, too faultless for our slipshod age. Yet these great icons of human beauty can never fail to stir us: his Vatican murals can stand fearlessly beside the Sistine ceiling. The School of Athens, for example, monumentally immortalizing the great philosophers, is unrivalled in its classic grace. Raphael's huge influence on successive artists is all the more impressive considering his short life.
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