Raphael
Biography
Born
Raffaelo Santi or Sanzio (1483-1520) Raphael was an outstanding master
of Italian High Renaissance art. Working chiefly as a painter and
occasionally as an architect, he synthesized classicism, idealization,
and naturalism to create a consummate Renaissance style. Born in Urbino,
a small independent duchy on the east coast of Italy, Raphael was
the son of a court painter named Giovanni Santi. His earliest training
under his father exposed him not only to modern painting techniques
and ideas, but also to the humanist intellectual concerns that circulated
in Urbino. His father died in 1494, and sometime thereafter Raphael
was sent to the workshop of Perugino, the most successful artist in
central Italy. His early paintings (Coronation of the Virgin, Rome,
Vatican, c. 1502-04; Marriage of the Virgin, Milan, Brera, c. 1504)
reveal considerable reliance on the older master; indeed, in Raphael's
early period it is often difficult to distinguish the two artists’
works. From 1504 to 1508 Raphael lived in Florence; this experience
would prove decisive in the maturation of his career, as exposure
to the art of Leonardo and Michelangelo led him to develop a grandiose,
powerful approach. Still very young, he received no significant public
commissions in Florence. Instead he concentrated on relatively small
private works -- paintings of the Madonna and Child and portraits
-- to explore a variety of artistic ideas. Works such as the Madonna
of the Meadow (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, c. 1505), the Madonna
of the Goldfinch (Florence, Uffizi, c. 1506) and Maddalena Doni (Florence,
Pitti Palace, c. 1507), reveal him working out how to use geometry,
balance, ideal form, and naturalism to create impressive, moving,
believable images. In 1508 Raphael moved to Rome, where he would spend
the rest of his life. Like Michelangelo, he had been summoned by Julius
II and was employed in redecorating the papal apartments in the Vatican
to suit the pope’s notions of an appropriate setting for the
seat of Christianity. He painted three rooms of the pope’s private
apartments from 1508 to 1517. The first, the Stanza della Segnatura
(1509-11), is his most famous. The School of Athens and Disputa, show
the artist’s mastery of composition in a large-scale, public
format. The frescoes are balanced, harmonious and naturalistic. Figures’
anatomies and poses are believable, and space and light are clear,
but the overall impression is of a perfect world, where human and
divine beings act with the utmost nobility and monumentality. In the
later two rooms, the Stanza d’Eliodoro (1511-14) and the Stanza
dell’Incendio (1514-17), Raphael strove to add drama and complexity
to his ideal world. Increasingly he relied on assistants to carry
out his designs. After the Stanza della Segnatura Raphael’s popularity
was ensured; he was inundated with commissions, both public and private,
from the highest levels of Roman society. His portrait, Julius II
(London, National Gallery, 1512) and Sistine Madonna (Dresden Gemäldegalerie,
1513), both painted for the pope, showed him returning to the painting
types of his Florentine years in a transformed style; now he moved
beyond artistic formulas to probe the psychology of both his figures
and his viewers, creating powerful impressions of personality. He
was commissioned by Pope Leo X to design a set of nine tapestries
to decorate the Sistine Chapel (Cartoons: London, Victoria and Albert
Museum; Tapestries: Rome, Vatican, 1515-16); their clarity and monumental
calm served as the classic model for depicting historical narrative
until the nineteenth century. He painted a number of oil paintings
and fresco decorations for Roman churches and private homes as well.
Raphael also worked as an architect. He designed two chapels for Agostino
Chigi, an influential Roman banker, between 1512 and 1516. Normally
the building of a new chapel would be parceled out to specialists,
but Raphael controlled the whole commission, planning the architecture
and devising the two-dimensional and three-dimensional decoration.
Thus he established the concept of the artist as the master who managed
an entire design rather than the craftsman-for-hire who produced what
his patron demanded. This new role allowed him determine how his art
was experienced. Raphael’s last major work was still incomplete
at his death. The Transfiguration (Rome, Vatican, 1518-20), a huge
altarpiece commissioned by the Medici, took the static, iconic altarpiece
formula of Renaissance art and converted it into dynamic narrative.
The clarity of the psychological relationships is typical of Raphael,
while the complexity of the poses and irregularity of the space suggest
the seeds of the Mannerist style that would dominate Italian painting
after his death. Until
the nineteenth century Raphael’s works served as the paradigm
of great art for western civilization. Clear, skillful, and grand,
they symbolized the artist as a rational intellect whose art was didactic
and ennobling. His popularity has declined with the modern concept
of the artist as a tortured genius, but there is no mistaking the
richness of his invention or the power of his presentation.
Sistine Madonna, c.1513-1514 (detail)
Raphael
35 in. x 24 in.
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