In this paper, I will write a brief history the Italian painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio, known as Raphael, who was a master from the High Renaissance (1495 – 1520) era. I will also give an account of some of the historical events going on during the period of Raphael. I will evaluate one of his most famous frescoes called “School of Athens” done early sixteenth century using the proper fine arts terms.
Brief History
According to the Chambers Biographical Dictionary (CBD), “Raphael was born in Urbino, the son of the poet-painter Giovanni Santi” (2011). From the Encyclopedia Britannica (EB), “Raphael was the son of Giovanni Santi and Magia di Battista Ciarla” his mother died in 1491. His father was, according to the 16th-century artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari, a painter ‘of no great merit.’ He was, however, a man of culture who was in constant contact with the advanced artistic ideas current at the court of Urbino” (2016). Found in Renaissance and Reformation Reference Library (RRRL), “Raphael was born in Urbino, the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter. He was trained by his father, who died in 1494” (p 314).
After the death of his father Raphael as stated by RRRL, “joined the work shop of Perugino (Pietro Vannucci; c. 1450-1523), the most renowned painter in central Italy at the time.
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Raphael adopted Perugino’s style and received several commissions” (p 315). It goes on to say, “Raphael showed a remarkable ability to adapt borrowed ideas with 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” (p 315). His apprenticeship at Perugia as stated in EB, There are paintings to show just this that Raphael did called “The Marriage of the Virgin – Vision of a Knight, Three Graces, and St Michael – are masterful examples of narrative paint, showing, as well as a youthful freshness, a maturing ability to control the elements of his own style.” (EB, 2016) According to RRRL, “In 1504 Raphael moved to Florence, the center of Renaissance art” (p 315).
This is where he studied painters Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Fra Bartolommeo. “He became attracted by the style of Fra Bartolommeo and, under his influence, he completed the Madonna del Baldacchino in Florence.” (CBD, 2011) It says in the RRRL that Raphael was also enticed to Leonardo’s work and “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” (p
315). This was also the time that according to EB, “Raphael learned the Florentine method of building up his composition in depth with pyramidal figure masses; the figures are grouped as a single unit, but retains its own individuality and shape” (2016). Raphael also took it upon himself “to learn from Michelangelo the expressive possibilities of human anatomy” however, Michelangelo and Leonardo “were both painters of dark intensity and excitement” whereas Raphael “wished to develop a calmer and more-extroverted style that would serve as a popular, universally accessible form of visual communication.” (EB, 2016) Then at the end of 1508, Raphael travels to Rome. “Raphael was called to Rome toward the end of 1508 by Pope Julius II at the suggestion of the architect Donato Bramante.” (EB, 2016) Rome is where Raphael will spend the rest of his short life. During those 12 years Raphael would “paint a cycle of frescoes in a suite of medium-sized rooms in the Vatican papal apartment in which Julius himself lived and worked; these rooms are known simply as the Stanze.” (EB, 2016). Julius II who was highly cultured kept company with the most renowned characters of the Renaissance. He contracted the best to work for him including Bramante and Michelangelo. As found in EB All though Raphael known for his frescoes, he was also recognized as a portrait painter, a student of archaeology, and an architect. He died in Rome on his birthday April 6, 1520 at the age of 37. The School of Athens The frescoes panel the School of Athens has to deal with philosophy and centers on Plato and Aristotle. The RRRL describes it “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 scientist, each indicating clearly by expression and gesture the character of his intellect” It then goes on saying, “Raphael’s painting technique is so precise that every detail in the School of Athens contributes s to a balance effect and conveys a sense of quiet grandeur” (p 316). Evaluation of School of Athens For me when I first saw the School of Athens, my eyes drawn to the center of the painting where Plato and Aristotle are. I am not sure but I think it is the way the arches are painted as each one get smaller as to look further away (vanishing point) causing Plato and Aristotle to look bigger. He also used other people curving around in a circle the room in the painting to bring emphasis on the center also. He used vertical and horizontal lines to have everyone point at Plato and Aristotle without making it look to intentional. Then I took a closer look and noticed all the different types of shade, value, and chiaroscuro he used to make the reliefs and sculptures giving them mass. The way he used his hues to add depth of field to bring out everyone’s expressions. I could see the use of sfumato, and added depth with pyramidal figure masses. Conclusion In conclusion, I found Raphael to be a fascinating man. He did so much in his short life. He was more than just a painter. He embodied the Renaissance era with everything that he did. The School of Athens shows his sense of clarity and harmony.
...laced on the style and materials presented in the painting. While evaluating and comparing various paintings the author feels that at the beginning of the Renaissance era the skill level of the artist was often not acknowledged whereas materials were, but at the end of the era, skill level played a larger factor in who was chosen to complete the artwork. Therefore, fresco painting, which emerged near the end of the period, changed this so called “deposit”, along with the relationship of the artist and the patron, allowing for the talent and skill of the artist to shine.
Fresco began in the thirteenth century at the time of Renaissance in Italy. This period is the culmination of the European mural art, many famous artists are involved in this exploration to create, the art of mural has been an unprecedented increase. The School of Athens and The Last Supper both are representational works of the Renaissance, have obvious similarities on perspective in composition. This essay will compare these works in the aspects of content, composition techniques and conception.
Raphael Sanizo, usually known just by his first name, was born in 1483 in Urbino, Italy. He was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. He was celebreated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. He was very productive in his life, but had an early death at the age of thirty-seven years old, letting his rival Michelangelo take the reins on the art world. He is one of the great masters of his time. He died on March 28 of 1483 at the age of thirty-seven years old.
Michelangelo was born in Caprese, Italy on March 6th 1475. His family was politically prominent as his family had large land property. His father was a banker and was looking to his son to engage in his businesses. As a young boy, he has ambitions of becoming a sculptor, but his father was very discouraging of this. He wanted his son to live up to the family name and take up his father’s businesses. Michelangelo became friends with Francesco Granacci, who introduced him to Domenico Ghirlandio(biography.com). Michelangelo and his father got into a series of arguments until eventually they arranged for him to study under Ghirlandaio at the age of thirteen. Ghirlandaio watched Michelangelo work and recognized his talent for the art and recommended him into an apprenticeship for the Medici family palace studio after only one year of at the workshop. The Medici’s were very rich from making the finest cloths. Lorenzo, which was one of the most famous of the family had a soft side for art and is credited for helping the Italian Renaissance become a time of illustrious art and sculpting. At ...
Lorenzo De Medici can be considered as one of the most influential men of the 13th century. His work in political affairs and administration were renowned in all Italy and his family could count on him in every aspect. Lorenzo was also a promoter of a new period called Renaissance. He was one of the first “mecenate” to explore this new way of art. In this project, I will concentrate how he developed art in Florence, giving a clear example through an Artist of that period that was working for him: Sandro Botticelli. His work “The Spring” is a well-defined example of what we can call “art in the Renaissance”, in particular for the Italian Renaissance.
During the Renaissance, people were dedicated to studying human works. They would observe from real life to gain inspiration, new ideas, and to try to recreate the world as they saw it in their art. New techniques such as scientific and atmospheric perspective were created, changing art forever. Artists would use their skills to create works for patrons, from the Church, various guilds, and other religious orders. During the High Renaissance, Julius II commissioned Raphael to decorate the Vatican Palace. The first of the rooms he decorated was The “Room of the Signature”, where he painted The School of Athens. Originally, this room housed Julius II’s personal library, but later on it would be the room where papal documents were signed. In 1508, Raphael began painting four frescoes that represented theology, philosophy, law, and the arts. As stated in Janson’s History of Art Volume II, This fresco “represents a summation of High Renaissance humanism, for it attempts to represent the unity of knowledge in one grand scheme.” Raphael’s The School of Athens is a prime example of humanistic art, as evidenced by the subject of the art itself, the classical elements in the piece, and it’s scientific and illusionistic rendering.
He born as Raffaello on April 6th, 1483, but for those that do not draw their roots from Italy, he is commonly known as Raphael. His future began with his father, a man who had a vision for his only surviving son. Giovanni saw the inherent skill and talent of Raphael at a very young age. Although he himself was not fortunate enough to see his work bear much fruit, he knew his son would carry the flickering torch that would someday burst into a magnificent flame of masterpiece. Little Raphael developed a passion for art and had a great understanding of it. As he grew, Raphael began to grow out of the teachings of his father. Seeing this, Giovanni took his son to Perugia to study under the influence of Pietro Perugino, a famous painter in the early 1500s. Raphael never saw his mother or father again. His parents had died by the time he was eight. Fortunately, Raphael spent the rest of his childhood acquiring wisdom from other artists and painters instead of focusing on his past (...
Raffaello Sanzio, more commonly known as Raphael, was born to his mother and father on April 6, 1483. He was born in the town of Urbino in Italy. Raphael’s father worked as a court painter under the Duke of Urbino. Raphael often helped his father paint some paintings for the court. Being around and growing up around the court as much as he did, Raphael was introduced to practicing proper manners and to new social skills. His mother passed away when he was eight years old and even though his father remarried, he passed away four years later. The passing of Raphael’s parents left him orphaned and living with his uncle, who was a priest. While living with his uncle, Raphael showed the talent that he had learned while helping his father at the Duke’s court. Around the age of fifteen or sixteen, Raphael did a self-portrait, which is the earliest known example of his work (Raphael Sanzio, 2012).
The School of Athens (Figure 1) is a fresco painting–a painting done in sections in the fresh plaster–on one of the four walls of the room, the Stanza della Segnatura this room is designated as papal library in the Vatican palace. In this image Raphael represents pictorially the intellectual activity of philosophy. He chooses to represent philosophy by depicting a large number of philosophers in the midst of their activities. The fifty-eight figures who occupy the grandiose architectural space are depicted in the midst of their activity: they are questioning, arguing, demonstrating, reading, and writing. Each figure is characterized so that it is not a mere compositional device, but a shorthand statement of the figure represented (Murray, 62). Raphael rendered the faces of the philosophers from classical statues if known, or else used his own contemporaries for models (Haas, 8)
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci, Italy on April 15, 1452. His father, Ser Piero di Antonio da Vinci, was not married to Leonardo’s mother, a poor girl named Caterina. Leonardo’s parents went their separate ways and married other people. Leonardo lived with his mother, grandmother, and his mother’s future husband for five years of his life, but Leonardo’s father claimed custody of Leonardo when he discovered that his current wife was unable to have children. Leonardo da Vinci’s father fathered 12 other children with several wives. Although these children shared the same father as Leonardo da Vinci they did not share his intellectual gifts.
Raphael was born Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino on April 6, 1483, and received his early training in art from his father, the painter Giovanni Santi. In 1499 he went to Perugia, in Umbria, and became a student and assistant of the painter Perugino. Raphael imitated his master closely; their paintings of this period are executed in styles so similar that art historians have found it difficult to determine which were painted by Raphael. In 1504 Raphael moved to Florence, where he studied the work of such established painters of the time as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, learning their methods of representing the play of light and shade, anatomy, and dramatic action. In 1508 Raphael was called to Rome by Pope Julius II and commissioned to execute frescoes in four small stanze, or rooms, of the Vatican Palace. The second Vatican chamber, the Stanza d'Eliodoro, painted with the aid of Raphael's assistants, contains scenes representing the triumph of the Roman Catholic church over its enemies.
Interestingly, he also refers to Donatello as a ‘craftsman’. The correlation between the artist or sculptor and craftsman is an important aspect in Italian Renaissance art. The craftsman was something more than just an artist. This person was talented and considered by others in Italian Renaissance society as exceptional or as Vasari’s title suggests, ‘the most excellent’. They were also tradespeople rather than just artists. This is because they created works for other people, which often meant they expressed other people’s ideas. Through an analysis of Vasari’s biography on Donatello, this essay will explore the importance of culture in Renaissance Italian society, an examination of Vasari’s biography of Donatello as a historical document and the ways in which Vasari portrays Donatello, which ultimately was significant for future Renaissance craftsmen. This paper will analyze the life of Donatello through Vasari’s The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects to show the importance of Donatello not only as an artist but also as a
In the article “Conditions of Trade,” Michael Baxandall explains the interaction serving of both fifteenth- century Italian painting and text on how the interpretation of social history from the style of pictures in a historical period, pre-eminently examine the early Renaissance painting. Baxandall looks not only on the explanation of how the style of painting is reflected in a society, but also engages in the visual skills and habits that develop out of daily life. The author examines the central focus on markets, material visual practices, and the concept of the Renaissance period overlooking art as an institution. He observes a Renaissance painting, which relate the experience of activities such as preaching, dancing, and assessing. The author considers discussions of a wide variety of artistic painters, for instance, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Stefano di Giovanni, Sandro Botticelli, Luca Signorelli, and numerous others. He defines and exemplifies concepts used in contemporary critic of the painting, and in the assembled basic equipment needed to discover the fifteenth- century art. Therefore this introductory to the fifteenth- century Italian painting and arise behind the social history, argues that the two are interconnected and that the conditions of the time helped shape the distinctive elements in the artists painting style. Through the institutional authorization Baxandall looks at integration in social, cultural and visual evaluation in a way that shows not only the visual art in social construction, but how it plays a major role in social orders in many ways, from interaction to larger social structural orders.
When Raphael turned seventeen he moved to the city of Perugia, where he worked with a famous artist named Pietro Perugino for four years. He continued to improve his painting, learning from Perugino, but also developing his own style. In 1504, Raphael moved to Florence. He was now considered a master painter ...
Leonardo was born in a small town in Tuscany, Italy called Vinci on 15 April, 1452. Back then, not all people had surnames; only those who were rich and powerful deserved one. Therefore, when people today refer to him as “Leonardo da Vinci”, “da Vinci” actually means “from Vinci” in Italian. His talent for painting was recognized by his family and neighbors when he was still a boy, and he started his painting career at a very young age. At 14, he was sent to Florence by his father to learn from Verrocchio, who owned a leading workshop at the time. It is said that when he cooperated with Verrocchio on the Baptism of Christ, his skill was so much finer than his master’s that Verrocchio quit in the middle and never painted again for his whole life. 1