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Joe Catalano Joe Catalano B. Wolf EGL 201 11/14/2013 Raphael The Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael is widely considered, along with Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, as part of the trinity of masters from that period. While modern eras have more popularly and stylistically mimicked the works of both da Vinci and Michaelangelo, Raphael’s works in the mediums of paint and architecture were often critically received as transcendent, even among his contemporaries in the trinity of the High Renaissance period. Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (usually known by just his first name, as the surnames given during this time period were to denote place of origin) was born between March 28th and April 6th, 1483 in the city of Urbino, located in the Marche region of Italy. His father, Giovanni Santi, was a court painter to the Duke of Urbino, allowing a young Raphael access to an education someone born into a lower class of individuals might not have had. In 1491, Raphael was reputedly placed in an apprenticeship with the master painter Pietro Perugino at the age of eight. His mother, Magia, would die that same year, followed by the death of his father in 1494. Orphaned at the age of 11, Raphael was passed into the care of his paternal uncle, Bartolomeo, who was a priest. Still working under the apprenticeship of Perugino, Raphael completed his first documented commissioned work in 1501, which was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Citta de Castello, a town situated between Perugia and Urbino. In the years that followed, he would paint several works for other churches in the area, including his Joe Catalano “Mond Crucifixion” in 1503, the Oddi Altarpiece and the Brera Wedding of the Virgin in 1504. Around this time, Raphael had also begun his foray into painting madonnas and portraits, until his departure to Florence in late 1504. It was during this period of sporadic residency in Florence, between 1504 and 1508, that Raphael met the famed artist Leonardo da Vinci, who at this time was 30 years his senior. Raphael would learn from da Vinci and incorporate many of his own ideas into da Vinci’s styles by the time of Leonardo’s departure from Florence in 1506. By the end of 1508, Raphael had moved to Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II, where he would spend the remainder of his short life. Upon his arrival, Raphael was immediately commissioned to complete a fresco in what was intended to become the Pope’s private library in the Vatican. Once finished, this room, now known as the “Stanza della Segnatura” sent shockwaves through the world of Roman art, and to this day is regarded as his greatest masterpiece. Upon completion of his first Fresco, Raphael was given further rooms to paint, displacing many master artists in the process, which continued past the death of Pope Julius II in 1513 and well into the reign of Pope Leo X. During his time in Rome, Raphael lived in veritable a palace designed by Bramante, and became engaged to a woman named Maria Bibbiena, a niece of Cardinal Medici Bibbiena, though they never married. In spite of his engagement, Raphael was said to have carried on many affairs. A prominent fixture in his personal life, however, was a woman named Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker from Siena. According to Giorgio Vasari, a close friend, confidante, mentor and fellow master painter, Raphael’s premature death at the age of 37 on April 6th, 1520 was caused by a night of excessive sexual relations with the girl, which caused him to fall ill with Fever (Hall, 2005). Refusing to divulge the true nature of his illness, the doctors gave Raphael the wrong cure, which led his symptoms to persist, killing him. Joe Catalano The life of Raphael, while tragically short, was nonetheless incredibly artistically dense. From the time of his initial apprenticeship to Pietro Perugia to the time of his death at age 37, he had completed no less than 98 different works, outpacing Michelangelo by more than 20 and Leonardo da Vinci by several dozens. His productivity can be attributed to the unusually large workshop he employed, which eventually consisted of upwards of fifty pupils, each of whom became a renowned artist in their own right. This was, arguably, the single largest establishment under any single master painter during the entirety of the renaissance, if not any classical period; it included the fifty pupils of Raphael, potentially in addition to several other master painters and their teams of pupils in roles as sub-contractors (Raphael - The Complete Works, 2013). This fantastically large establishment allowed Raphael to not only churn out his works with regular frequency, but also allowed him to turn those works in which he would mimic and improve upon the styles of other master painters into projects that were critically acclaimed beyond their predecessors. An example of this type of transcendence in scope, would be his masterpiece “The School of Athens,” in which a portrait of Michelangelo himself makes an appearance as the Greek character Heraclitus, the painting style of which very clearly mimicked the ignudi (the twenty seated nude figures) and sybils from the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. For this, Michelangelo would accuse Raphael of plagiarism until his death. Raphael’s own style was heavily influenced by his apprenticeship to Pietro Perugino, perhaps more than any other. According to the Swiss art historian Heinrich Wolfllin, “probably no other pupil of genius has ever absorbed so much of his masters teaching as Raphael did” (Osborne, 2003 p. 73). In addition to being influenced by Perugino, Raphael’s own style was heavily influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. During the time Raphael spent in Florence, much of his work began to take on much more dynamism and complexity with respect to his human figures, a staple of da Joe Catalano Vinci’s work and something we don’t see in the paintings of Raphael prior to his years in Florence. The methods of the painter Raphael varied from project to project, though a single consistent preparatory element can be cited and physically found throughout the entirety of his works. Raphael is frequently hailed as one of the finest draftsmen in the history of western art, and his drawings have been engraved by other artists, such as Raimondi’s “Lucretia,” as works of their own. When planning a composition, Raphael would reputedly lay out a large number of stock drawings on his floor, and begin to draw “rapidly,” borrowing figures from here or there. Many art historians lament that in the final years of Raphael’s workshop, his drawings prove to be far and away of better quality than the paintings, as much of his time and attention were spent on his work at the Vatican, with his apprentices and pupils filling in the drawings of work he had been commissioned to complete. The critical reception of Raphael’s works was, in his time, even higher and more positively praised than other masters of the Renaissance period, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Girgio Vasari, Pietro Perugino or Michelangelo. Praised as a master of incorporating the styles of other artists into his own, and even improving upon them, Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries, though his influence on artistic style during the High Renaissance was decidedly less than that of Michelangelo. In spite of this, the opinion of most modern and classical art historians and critics is and was that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter; in “The Cambridge Companion to Raphael,” art historian and critic Anthony Blunt states that “[the opinion]…was generally held in the middle of the sixteenth century that Raphael was the ideal balanced painter, universal in his talent, satisfying all the absolute standards, and obeying all the rules which were supposed to govern the arts, whereas Michelangelo was the eccentric genius, more brilliant than any other artists in his particular field, the drawing of the male nude, but unbalanced and lacking Joe Catalano in certain qualities, such as grace and restraint, essential to the great artist” (Osborne, 2005 p. 76). Raphael’s greatest period of artistic influence came between the 17th and 19th centuries, when his perfect balance and decorum were widely studied and admired. During this time, his compositions would go on to become the basis for the training programs for the Academies of Art. Raphael’s most influential and renowned works are the four rooms of the Vatican he was commissioned to paint. The first and most famous, the Stanza della Segnatura, was the study housing the library of Pope Julius II. The first wall of this room to be completed was called “The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament,” completed in 1509. Raphael’s most famous fresco, residing on the opposite wall of “Disputa” is called “The School of Athen’s.” It is widely regarded as Raphael’s most famous fresco, and was completed in 1510. Completed in 1511, the third wall was called “The Parnassus” and the fourth wall was called “The Cardinal Virtues,” and completed near the end of 1511. The second room Raphael was to paint, “Stanza dell'incendio del Borgo,” was prepared as a music room for the successor to Pope Julius II, Pope Leo X. Though Raphael designed the frescoes, his apprentices would ultimately finish the painting. The third room, “Stanza di Eliodoro,” was completed by Raphael in 1514. The final room, “Sala di Costantino,” was one Raphael would never paint, nor see, as his untimely death at the age of 37 would predate the painting and completion of his final masterpiece by nearly four years. Together, these four rooms consist of the greatest and most influential of the artist’s works, forming the “Stanze di Raffaello” (The Raphael Rooms), Raphael’s final masterpiece and legacy. The artist Raphael is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance. His works and masterpieces have influenced centuries of contemporary and modern art, and his style has been cemented in the teachings of the Academies of Art. Along with his fellow grand Joe Catalano masters of the High Renaissance period, Raphael was and has been one of greatest and most influential artists in human history. Joe Catalano Works Cited Hall, Marcia B.. The Cambridge companion to Raphael. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Osborne, June, and Joe Cornish. "The renaissance Ideal." Urbino: the story of a Renaissance city. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 73. Print. "Raphael - The complete works." Raphael - The complete works. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.raphaelsanzio.org/>.