Raphael

Personal

Born Raffaello Sanzio, April 6, 1483, in Urbino, Italy; died as the result of a fever, April 6, 1520, in Rome, Italy; son of Giovanni Santi (a painter). Education: Studied with father, Giovanni Santi; trained with Perugino, 1500-04.

Career

Painter and architect. Commissioned by Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X, Rome, Italy, 1508-20, to create fresco decorations of Vatican suites (Stanza della Segnatura, 1508-11, Stanza d'Eliodoro, 1511-14) and design St. Peter's Church. Principal artworks include Mond Crucifixion, 1502-03, Marriage of the Virgin, 1504, Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505, Saint George and the Dragon, c. 1506, La Belle Jardiniè, 1507, Deposition of Christ, 1507, Dispute over the Sacrament, 1509-10, School of Athens, 1510-11, Portrait of a Cardinal, c. 1510-12, Pope Julius II, 1511-12, Madonna di Foligno, c. 1512, The Nymph Galatea, c. 1512-14, The Sistine Madonna, c. 1512-14, The Burning of the Borgo, 1514, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, 1514-15, La Spasimo di Sicilia, c. 1516, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, c. 1516-19, Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals, 1518, La Fornarina, 1518, and Transfiguration of Christ, 1520. Architect of St. Eligio degli Orefici, Rome (with Bramante), 1509, Chigi Chapel, St. Maria del Popolo, Rome, c. 1512-13, Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli, Rome, and Palazzo Branconio del'Aquila, Rome, 1520. Exhibitions: Works included in permanent collections at Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria; Louvre, Paris, France; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery, London, England; Museo Prado, Madrid Spain; Vatican Museums, Vatican City; Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy; and Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy, among others.

Sidelights

"Leonardo promises Heaven, but Raphael, he gives it to us," famed artist Pablo Picasso once said. The sixteenth-century Italian artist whom the world has come to know by one name, Raphael, was a painter and architect for popes at age 25, a friendly competitor of the fiery Michelangelo, and a devoted aesthetician who died at the age of 37. Considered the supreme representative of Italian High Renaissance classicism, Raphael is positioned alongside da Vinci, Titian, and Michelangelo at the pinnacle of Renaissance art. Blending the styles of a variety of painters, Raphael created his own unmistakably sweet style, characterized by coloring, versatility, and composition.

Raphael's best-known works, including School of Athens and Dispute over the Sacrament, were conceived as fresco wall decorations for the Vatican apartments, and were painted when Raphael was in his late twenties. When Raphael died in 1520, he was at the height of his powers and fame; in the nearly half a millennium since his passing, his reputation as an innovator has never wavered. Though some, like Donald Bruce, reviewing a modern exhibit of Raphael's early work for Contemporary Review, could complain that "Raphael's brilliance shines but does not warm," the overwhelming critical assessment ranks Raphael as a master craftsman. So well known is his work, in fact, that the brilliance of the paintings is often taken for granted. As Arthur C. Danto noted in the Nation, "The grinding familiarity of the Raphaelesque idiom blinds us to his originality, while Modernism itself desensitizes us to the inducements of the academic maniera [manner] he invented." Danto went on to comment, "The price of having been perhaps the most influential artist in history is that Raphael, today, looks too—academic. Too pure, too perfect, too polished, too subject to the rules that were based on his great achievements."

Twice Orphaned

Raphael was born Raffaello Sanzio in 1483. His place of birth was Urbino in central Italy where his father, the painter Giovanni Santi, worked for the ruling family of Frederico da Montefeltro. Thus Raphael grew up in a courtly milieu, with access to the learning and erudition, as well as the pomp and ceremony, that such a court offered. It is said that as a baby he was nursed by his mother rather than by a peasant wet nurse as was the custom of the time. His father insisted on this so that his son would avoid coming into contact with the rougher elements of the world. His childhood was, according to Peter Schjeldahl, writing in the New Yorker, "sheltered, rich in aristocratic culture, and industrious." Raphael's beloved mother died when the boy was only eight; his father died three years later. By this time, the eleven-year-old Raphael was already working in his father's workshop. Put into the care of one of his uncles, Giovanni, he found an "artistic foster father in Giovanni's associate, Timoteo Viti," according to Bruce. Viti continued to train the young painter, a task his father had previously undertaken; however, Viti soon was learning from the precocious youth.

Into the World

Like his father, Raphael venerated the painter known as Perugino. According to Bruce, "Perugino runs through Raphael's early work like the stripe through an agate." In fact, his early work so resembles Perugino's that early biographers assumed he became part of Perugino's studio immediately after the death of his father. However, records show that Raphael did not become Perugino's apprentice until he was seventeen years old, in 1500. But he was more than an apprentice. By this time a master painter, he joined Perugino's workshop in that status. Over the next four years he painted altarpieces for churches in Perugia and in Città di Castello. He also painted numerous sacred subjects for the patrician families of Perugia, including the Coronation of the Virgin and the Marriage of the Virgin. Among the altarpieces, one of the best known of these early works is the Mond Crucifixion. He also painted numerous Madonnas. Throughout these years, Raphael's work closely resembled that of Perugino, but the young artist was eager to move on to broader horizons, to build his own artistic idiom.

In 1504, now age twenty-one, Raphael arrived in Florence, a city much dominated by the art of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. From this point on, Perugino disappears from Raphael's style, replaced by influences from these other two masters. An early portrait from this period closely resembles da Vinci's Mona Lisa, down to a similar perplexing smile. His Bridgewater Madonna from 1507 contains a Christ child lifted directly from a relief by Michelangelo. But he was also perfecting his own style during the Florence years, working on commissions not only in that city but also in other Tuscan cities, such as Siena, and also spending time in Urbino and Perugia. As his fame began to spread, commissions came from more distant places. None, however, were so grand as that from the pope himself in Rome.

Papal Painter and Architect

Through the influence of a distant relative, architect Donato Bramante, Raphael was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II in 1508. There he was commissioned to decorate several suites of rooms in the Vatican, producing frescoes and tapestry cartoons. These works, according to Schjeldahl, "realize a genius for architecturally integrated design—mighty compositions of vivacious figures in deep space, appearing to expand the real area of a room," and constitute "Raphael's original, sadly truncated, contribution to art." Again, Michelangelo proved an inspiration for the younger painter, for the older artist was hard at work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling nearby, and Raphael was able to study the ongoing work.

The first of the rooms Raphael decorated, the Stanza della Segnatura, was completed around 1511 and contains one of his most famous works, the School of Athens. These rooms were intended for use by the pope as a library, thus the themes of the paintings deal with theology, philosophy, poetry, and jurisprudence. Raphael's School of Athens thus depicts a group of philosophers with Plato and Aristotle at the center, gathered under a vaulted dome. Also for this room is the famous Dispute over the Sacrament, also known as Disputa.

Raphael then began work on the Stanza d'Eliodoro, each of whose walls was painted with some historical or legendary narrative that had special significance for the current pope. Meanwhile, the industrious Raphael began to work for wealthy banker Agostini Chigi as both a painter and architect, designing chapels and stables. It was also during his early years in Rome that he made contact with engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, who created plates of Raphael's drawings that helped to spread the artist's fame.

Fame indeed came to the handsome young man. "Rome fell hard for Raphael's charisma," noted Schjeldahl. Similarly, Richard Cork, writing in the New Statesman, commented that "by age 28, Raphael had become a legendary figure." Jackie Wullschlager, writing in the Financial Times, felt also that in his last seven years, "Raphael began to show signs of incorporating greater toughness, agitation, violence even, into his sublimely graceful compositions." These qualities were found in such paintings as the Sistine Madonna and a portrait of the courtier Baldassare Castiglione, a personal friend of the artist. The death of Pope Julius II did not diminish Raphael's position at the Vatican. Julius's successor, Pope Leo X, put Raphael in charge of all the classical structures of Rome and commissioned him to create a map of the city as it had appeared in ancient times. Raphael also served as chief architect of St. Peter's and of several other churches and palaces in Rome. A consummate organizer, he also conceived a new studio system, in which his workers were not merely assigned drudgework, but were considered fellow painters and collaborators. Much of the painting signed by Raphael in the last decade of his life was, in fact, the work of his studio based on his original sketches. At his death in 1520, Raphael had started work on another Vatican apartment, for which he had completed the drawings of the Battle of Milvan Bridge. He was also at work on the Transfiguration, depicting passages from the New Testament.

Raphael's early death was mourned in Rome as if he had been a papal legate himself. His influence was felt far and wide. In immediate terms, he became one of the progenitors of the style known as Mannerism, and his innovations in the painting of domes were used by baroque painters. Some of Titian's most famous portraits were deeply influenced by Raphael, and Raphael's techniques, from the way he mixed paint to his practice of drawing from a nude model to the manner in which he handled fabric and drapery in his paintings, later became part of the training of the classical painter.

If you enjoy the works of Raphael

If you enjoy the works of Raphael, you may also want to check out the following:

The art of other Italian High Renaissance painters, including Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione, Titian, and Giovanni Bellini.

The Modern Viewpoint

In the modern era Raphael has suffered somewhat by comparison with his two famous contemporaries, da Vinci and Michelangelo, whose art and personalities both seem to tally more with modern sensibilities. Raphael's art is sometimes under-appreciated because so many other artists have borrowed heavily from him, and thus his originality is sometimes lost simply because of his fame. Also, the engravings which helped to make him famous have also made him seem commonplace, featuring as they often do the most saccharine of his Madonnas. And though Raphael was known in his time as a lady's man who, though he never married, would not travel to a new commission unless room was made for his mistress, little of this sensuality comes through in his work.

Raphael's formalism also distances some modern viewers. As Danto noted, "Like a very successful professor, he appears to have had a career rather than a life." Schjeldahl went so far as to say that Raphael's "version of the beautiful is the sublime of the pretty: sheer comeliness to the nth power." For Schjeldahl, Raphael's paintings "lack the element of reverent awe that informs beauty. They are about liking, albeit intense liking, rather than love." Despite such criticism, however, Raphael remains, as a contributor for the International Dictionary of Art and Artists noted, "one of the key masters of the High Renaissance style."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Ames-Lewis, Francis, The Draftsman Raphael, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1986.

Baldini, Nicoletta, Raphael, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2005.

Beck, James, Raphael, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1976.

Brown, David and Jane Van Nimmen, Raphael and the Beautiful Banker: The Story of the Bindo Altoviti Portrait, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2005.

Chapman, Hugo, and others, Raphael: From Urbino to Rome, National Gallery (London, England), 2004.

Clayton, Martin, Raphael and His Circle: Drawings from Windsor Castle, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1999.

Cornini, Guido, and others, Raphael in the Apartments of Julius II and Leo X: Papal Monuments, Museums, Galleries, Electa (Milan, Italy), 1993.

De Vecchi, Pierluigi, Raphael, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Dewez, Guy, Villa Madama: A Memoir Relating to Raphael's Project, Princeton Architectural Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Fischel, Oskar, Raphael, two volumes, translated by B. Rackham, Kegan Paul (London, England), 1948.

Freedberg, Sydney J., Painting in Italy, 1500-1600, Penguin Books (London, England), 1975.

Hall, Marcia, Raphael's "School of Athens," Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Hall, Marcia B., The Cambridge Companion to Raphael, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Hartt, Frederick, History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, 3rd edition, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1987.

Hersey, George L., High Renaissance Art in St. Peter's and the Vatican: An Interpretive Guide, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1993.

International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1993.

International Dictionary of Art and Artists, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1990.

Jones, Roger, and Nicholas Penny, Raphael, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1983.

Salmi, Mario, editor, Raphael: The Complete Works, Reynal (New York, NY), 1969.

Santi, Bruno, Raphael, Riverside Book (New York, NY), 1997.

PERIODICALS

Apollo, October, 2004, Tom Henry, "Raphael and Siena," p. 50; December, 2004, David Ekserdjian, "The Making of Raphael," p. 76.

Artforum International, September, 2004, David Drogin, "Urbino Legend," p. 92.

Contemporary Review, December, 2004, Donald Bruce, "Raphael at the National Gallery," p. 346.

Financial Times (London, England), October 20, 2004, Jackie Wullschlager, "Young Master Teaches Us to Read the Classics," p. 13.

Nation, December 19, 1987, Arthur C. Danto, "Raphael's Drawings," p. 765.

New Statesman, November 1, 2004, Richard Cork, "The Angel Raphael," p. 39.

Newsweek, December 13, 2004, Peter Plagens, "Woman of Mystery," p. 68.

New Yorker, November 22, 2004, Peter Schjeldahl, "The Charmer," p. 104.

ONLINE

Artchive.com, http://www.artchive.com/ (April 20, 2005), "Raphael."

Grove Art Online, http://www.groveart.com/ (April 21, 2005), Nicholas Penny, "Raphael."

Guardian Online, http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (November 25, 2000).

International Herald Tribune Online, http://www.iht.com/ (April 24, 1999), Roderick Conway Morris, "Raphael's Studio and Legacy"; (June 17, 2000), Souren Melikian, "Raphael: Emotions beneath the Paint."

National Gallery, http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ (April 20, 2005), "Raphael."

Web Gallery of Art, http://www.wga.hu/ (April 20, 2005), "Raffaello Sanzio."

WebMuseum, http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/ (April 20, 2005), "Raphael."