Raphael

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Raphael

April 6, 1483
Urbino, Italy
April 6, 1520
Rome, Italy

Painter, architect

The Italian painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio, called Raphael, is considered the supreme representative of the High Renaissance (1495–1520). This was the period when artistic expression reached its height in Italy, home of the Renaissance. Since the Renaissance began in the early 1400s, art had been based on concepts from classical, or ancient, Greek and Roman culture. Paintings were characterized by balanced proportions (harmonious arrangement of shapes and details), idealized images, and rich colors. Renaissance artists gave particular attention to achieving a sense of depth, or three dimensions, by using a technique called linear perspective. Invented by the Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446), linear perspective is a system derived from mathematics in which all elements of a composition are measured and arranged from a single point of view, or perspective.

Moves to Florence

Raphael was born in Urbino, the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter. He was trained by his father, who died in 1494. Sometime thereafter Raphael joined the workshop of Perugino (Pietro Vannucci; c. 1450–1523), the most renowned painter in central Italy at the time. Raphael adopted Perugino's style and received several commissions. During his four years with Perugino, Raphael showed a remarkable ability to adapt borrowed ideas within a very personal style. Many works of this period, such as the Mond Crucifixion (1503), are in stylistic detail almost indistinguishable from Perugino's gentle technique, but they have a clarity and harmony that are lacking in Perugino's work. Raphael's last painting before leaving Perugino was Marriage of the Virgin (1504). It is primarily modeled on Perugino's version of the same subject. Raphael's design, however, has a greater sense of space and the figures are portrayed more accurately. Raphael also communicated the dramatic significance of the subject without the artificiality of pose and gesture seen in Perugino's work.

In 1504 Raphael moved to Florence, the center of Renaissance art. When he arrived he discovered that his style was unsophisticated compared with the recent innovations of the great Florentine painters Michelangelo (1475–1564; see entry) and Leonardo (1452–1519; see entry). Raphael was especially attracted to Leonardo's work. During the next four years he painted a series of Madonnas (pictures of Mary, mother of Jesus Christ) that incorporated Leonardo's techniques. One technique was sfumato, which involves defining a form by blending one color into another rather than using distinct outlines. It was principally, however, Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina rather than Leonardo's companion piece, the Battle of Anghiari, that provided the dramatic ideas used by Raphael in his most ambitious Florentine work, the Entombment (1507). During his stay in Florence he was also commissioned to do several portraits.

Paints School of Athens

In 1508 Raphael went to Rome to decorate the apartment of Pope Julius II (1433–1516; reigned 1503–13), the Stanza della Segnatura, at the Vatican (residence of the pope, who is the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church). This work, which Raphael completed in 1511, consists of panels that represent the four areas of divinely inspired human intellect: theology (the study of religion), poetry, philosophy (the search for a general understanding of values and reality through speculative thinking), and law. The panel on philosophy, titled The School of Athens, is considered one of Raphael's greatest achievements. The two central figures are the ancient Greek philosophers Plato (c. 428–348 b.c.) and Aristotle (384–322 b.c.). As an idealist (one who believes that ultimate truth exists outside nature) Plato points heavenward, and the realist (one who finds truth in the known world) Aristotle gestures toward the ground. Around them are grouped many other classical philosophers and scientists, each indicating clearly by expression and gesture the character of his intellect. Raphael's painting technique is so precise that every detail in the School of Athens contributes to a balanced effect and conveys a sense of quiet grandeur.

Raphael's architecture

In addition to achieving fame as a painter, Raphael was an architect. In 1509 he began working with Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio (called Bramante; 1444–1514), the first influential Renaissance architect. Art historians speculate that Raphael was preparing to take over the post of capomastro (supervisor) of the rebuilding of Saint Peter's Basilica, the main church of the Roman Catholic faith, in Rome. Bramante died in 1514 and Raphael became capomastro, but progress on Saint Peter's was very slow during the next six years. Raphael's only contribution seems to have been suggesting the addition of a nave, or main part of a church to Bramante's design.

Raphael's first architectural work was the Saint Eligio degli Orefici church in Rome, which he designed in collaboration with Bramante in 1509. The building that more clearly shows Raphael's ornate decorative style is the Chigi Chapel in Saint Maria del Popolo (1513), also located in Rome. A similar emphasis on richness of texture and detailing can be seen in Raphael's two Roman palaces, the Palazzo Vidoni-Caffarelli and the Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila (c.1520), both of which were destroyed. As in his last paintings, Raphael was moving away from the simple lines and shapes of Renaissance architecture to the more elaborate style of mannerism (the term given to the more expressive art of the sixteenth century).

Oversees productive workshop

After Raphael completed the Stanza della Segnatura, Julius commissioned him to decorate the adjacent room, the Stanza d' Elidoro (the audience chamber). Julius died before it was finished, but his successor, Pope Leo X (1475–1521; reigned 1513–21), told Raphael to continue. The pope eventually assigned him two more rooms, the Stanza dell' Incendio (the meeting room of the Catholic Church's supreme court) and the Sala di Constantino. Very quickly, Raphael became popular with Roman patrons, or wealthy supporters of the arts. Commissions of all sorts poured into his workshop during the last six years of his life. By this time he was relying on assistants. For instance, frescoes (wall paintings) in the Stanza dell'Incendio (1514–17) were based on his design but executed almost entirely by assistants, as was the fresco decoration of the Vatican loggias, or porches (1517–19). Many of his assistants were more collaborators (artists who produce works with other artists) than apprentices (beginning artists who learn from a master artist), and some were older than he. In 1515 he had what was probably the largest painting workshop that had ever been assembled. Reportedly, fifty artists accompanied Raphael daily to the Vatican.

Raphael also was much in demand by aristocrats (members of the upper social class) who wanted him to paint their portraits. In 1517 Raphael painted one of his best-known portraits, that of Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529; see entry), author of the popular Book of the Courtier. Like most of Raphael's finest portraits, it is the depiction of a close friend. Castiglione is portrayed with great psychological insight, his gentle, scholarly face perfectly suited to the man, who in Book of the Courtier defined the qualities of the ideal gentleman. Descriptions of Raphael's own pleasant disposition and courteous manner indicate that he himself possessed the qualities Castiglione wished to find in the perfect courtier.

Capitalizes on art market

Raphael had by now developed his own style, which consisted of a distinctive use of color and an emphasis on gesture and movement. This style is evident is such works as the cartoons that depict the lives of two early church fathers,

Titian

Another important painter working at the same time as Raphael was Titian (Tiziano Vecellio; c. 1488–1576). Titian was born in Pieve di Cadore, Italy. He achieved fame as an interpreter of classical mythology with three paintings—Andrians, Worship of Venus, and Bacchus and Ariadne—which he composed for Alfonso d'Este's castle in Ferrara between 1518 and 1523. One of his best-known early works is the Assumption of the Virgin (1516–18), which marked the triumph of the High Renaissance in Venice. During the 1520s Titian produced the Pesaro Madonna (1519–26), in which he used color, light, and atmosphere to establish a new formula for Venetian altars that continued into the following century.

An important event in Titian's career was his trip to Bologna in 1530 to attend the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558). At this time the artist painted his first portrait of the emperor in armor. In 1545 Titian traveled to Rome, and saw the glories of the ancient city as well as the masterpieces of Raphael and Michelangelo. Among the numerous works he produced during his brief stay in Rome was Paul III and His Grandsons, which depicts a dramatic encounter between the aged pope and his scheming grandsons. It is considered one of the most psychologically revealing works in the history of portraiture. In 1548 Charles V called Titian to Augsburg, Germany. The artist painted the celebrated equestrian portrait, Charles V at Mühlberg, which commemorated the emperor's victory over the German Protestants in the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547. In this work Titian established a type of equestrian portrait that presents the ruler as a symbol of power. Titian also produced portraits of members of the emperor's court. The most important is that of Charles's son, Prince Philip (1527–1598), dressed in armor, which set a standard for state portraits. The prince later became Philip II, king of Spain. In the 1550s Philip II commissioned Titian to paint religious pictures for the monastery (a house for monks, members of a religious order) of the Escorial, the royal palace in Spain. Among them was the Last Supper (1557–64). During the same period Titian also executed mythological works for the Escorial, such as the Rape of Europa. Titian continued to explore the depths of human character in his portraits until the end of his life. His late religious pictures convey a mood of universal tragedy, as in the Annunciation (c.1565) and the Christ Crowned with Thorns. The Pietà which was unfinished at his death, was intended for his own tomb chapel. When Titian died at his spacious palace in Venice, he was universally recognized as one of the great masters.

Saints Peter and Paul. (At that time a cartoon had not yet come to mean a satirical or humorous drawing. Instead, it was a preparatory design or drawing for a fresco.) Other typical works were the decoration (begun 1519) of the Villa Farnesina in Rome and Raphael's largest canvas painting, the Transfiguration, which was commissioned in 1517 but remained incomplete at his death. The Peter and Paul cartoons were sent to Flanders to be worked into tapestries (large embroidered wall hangings) for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and were partly responsible for the adoption of Raphael's style throughout Europe. His work was also spread through engravings, or images made by printing from etched steel plates. The market for art prints was just then getting established and Raphael was one of the first to take advantages of it. Raphael supplied unused drawings and designs to engravers, who were required to follow his instructions regarding the production of images. He collaborated with the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi (c. 1480–c. 1534) and then allied himself with a businessman known as Il Bavieri, who was responsible for selling the engravings. Raphael appears to have set certain conditions with engravers to control quality and his copyright (exclusive legal right to the sale and reproduction of a work), and he received most of the profits for these engravings.

When Raphael died in Rome at age thirty-seven his art was developing in new directions. The High Renaissance, which had reached its peak around 1510, had passed. Raphael's pupils began incorporating characteristics of the mannerist style in the last works of their great master. Raphael had made major contributions to painting. He invented new modes of composing a picture and new techniques for using color, which were often imitated.

Raphael was a master of linear perspective, which was evolving throughout the High Renaissance. He also invented the concept of modes of coloring, in that he was the first to select a color style to match a project. This was an innovation because, in the traditional workshop of the fifteenth century, a master typically had only one color style, which he taught to his apprentices. As a result of Raphael's experimentations with color, the next generation of painters felt liberated to vary their choice of colors with each commission and to develop new modes.

Raphael's reputation suffered in the twentieth century because his style had been adopted as the model for academic art, beginning in the French Academy of the sixteenth century. Elements of his methods were taught to young painters as strict rules. This practice contradicted the freedom that Raphael allowed his own students and collaborators. It was also inconsistent with his experimental approach, in which he never repeated himself. Nevertheless, Raphael has been recognized as one of the greatest European painters, not only of the Renaissance but of all time.