Download Raphael was an Italian Renaissance painter and

Raphael was an Italian Renaissance painter and architect, and his
work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE [ edit ]
Discuss influences on Raphael and his artistic achievements.
KEY POINTS [ edit ]
Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, Raphaelforms the traditional trinity of great
masters of that period. He was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop, and
despite his death at thirty, a large body of his work remains.
Some of Raphael's most striking artistic influences come from the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci;
because of this inspiration, Raphael gave his figures more dynamic and complex positions in his
earlier compositions.
Raphael's "Stanze" masterpieces are very large and complex compositions that have been
regarded among the supreme works of the High Renaissance. They give a highly idealized
depiction of the forms represented, and the compositions, though very carefully conceived in
drawings, achieve "sprezzatura".
TERMS [ edit ]
sprezzatura
The art of performing a difficult task so gracefully, that it looks effortless.
loggia
a roofed, open gallery
contrapposto
The position of a figure whose hips and legs are twisted away from the direction of the head and
shoulders.
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Overview
Raphael, 1483–1520, was an Italian
painter and architect of the High
Renaissance. 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. Together with
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael forms the traditional trinity of
great masters of that period. He was
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enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop; despite his death at thirty, a
large body of his work remains among the most famous of High Renaissance art.
Influences
Some of Raphael's most striking artistic influences come from the paintings of Leonardo da
Vinci. In response to da Vinci's work, Raphael gave his figures more dynamic and complex
positions in some of his earlier compositions. For instance, Raphael's Saint Catherine of
Alexandria,1507, borrows from the contrapposto pose of Leonardo's Leda and the Swans .
While Raphael was also aware of Michelangelo's works, however, he deviates from his style.
For instance, in hisDeposition of Christ, Raphael draws on classical sarcophagi to spread the
figures across the front of the picture space in a complex and not wholly successful
arrangement, and although there is some influence of the Madonna from
Michelangelo'sDoni Tondo, most of the composition is far removed from his style.
Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1507, borrows from the contrapposto pose of Leonardo's Leda.
The Stanze Rooms and the Loggia
In 1511, Raphael began work on the famous Stanze paintings, which made a stunning impact
on Roman art, and remains generally regarded as his greatest masterpiece. The Stanza della
Segnatura contains The School of Athens, Poetry ,Disputa, and Law. The School of
Athens, depicting Plato and Aristotle, is one of his best known works. These very large and
complex compositions have been regarded ever since as among the supreme works of the
High Renaissance, and the "classic art" of the post-antique West. They give a highly idealized
depiction of the forms represented, and the compositions—though very carefully conceived in
drawings—achieve "sprezzatura," a term invented by Raphael's friend Castiglione, who
defined it as "a certain nonchalance that conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or
does seem uncontrived and effortless. "
The Parnassus, 1511, from the "Stanze" or Stanza della Segnatura Rooms.
The Stanze rooms are regarded as one of Raphael's greatest masterpieces.
In the later phase of Raphael's career, he designed and painted the Loggia at the Vatican, a
long thin gallery that was open to a courtyard on one side and decorated with Roman-style
grottesche. He also produced a number of significantaltarpieces, including The Ecstasy of St.
Cecilia and the Sistine Madonna. His last work, on which he was working until his death, was
a large Transfiguration which, together with Il Spasimo, shows the direction his art was
taking in his final years, becoming more proto-Baroque than Mannerist.
The Master's studio
Raphael ran a workshop of over fifty pupils and assistants, many of whom later became
significant artists in their own right. This was arguably the largest workshop team assembled
under any single old master painter, and much higher than the norm. They included
established masters from other parts of Italy, probably working with their own teams as subcontractors, as well as pupils and journeymen.
Architecture
In architecture, Raphael's skills were employed by the papacy and wealthy Roman nobles.
For instance, Raphael designed the plans for the the Villa Madama, which was to be a lavish
hillside retreat for Pope Clement VII (and was never finished). Even incomplete, Raphael's
schematic was the most sophisticated villa design yet seen in Italy, and greatly influenced the
later development of the genre. It also appears to be the only modern building in Rome of
which Palladio made a measured drawing.
Draftsman
Finally, Raphael was one of the finest draftsmen in the history of Western art, and used
drawings extensively to plan his compositions. According to a near-contemporary, when
beginning to plan a composition, he would lay out a large number of stock drawings of his on
the floor, and begin to draw "rapidly," borrowing figures from here and there. Over forty
sketches survive for the Disputa in the Stanze, and there may well have been many more
originally (over four hundred sheets survive altogether). As evidenced in his sketches for
hisMadonna and Child, Raphael used different drawings to refine his poses and
compositions, apparently to a greater extent than most other painters, to judge by the
number of variants that survive . Most Raphael drawings are rather precise—even initial
sketches with naked outline figures are carefully drawn, and later working drawings often
have a high degree of finish, with shading and sometimes highlights in white. They lack the
freedom and energy of some of Leonardo's and Michelangelo's sketches, but are almost
always very satisfying aesthetically.
Raphael Sketch
This drawing shows Raphael's efforts in developing the composition for the Madonna and Child.