Published 29 July 2018
Raphael, Self-Portrait
The Princely Painter
Raphael's outstanding talent was matched by his graceful manner. His courteous nature and constant entourage led Vasari to comment that he lived 'more like a prince than a painter'.
Raffaello Sanzio – Raphael – was the perfect Renaissance artist. Gracious and charming as a man, and a painter of superlative skill, he seemed to be the living embodiment of the Renaissance ideal. Though neither as innovative as Leonardo, nor as sculptural as Michelangelo, he painted with a beauty of line and colour and a harmony in composition that surpassed them both.
Raffaello Sanzio – Raphael – was the perfect Renaissance artist. Gracious and charming as a man, and a painter of superlative skill, he seemed to be the living embodiment of the Renaissance ideal. Though neither as innovative as Leonardo, nor as sculptural as Michelangelo, he painted with a beauty of line and colour and a harmony in composition that surpassed them both.
Raphael is closely associated with his birthplace, Urbino, but he painted most of his great works in Florence and Rome. There, he was showered with commissions and became one of the greatest painters of his age. But illness struck him down at the height of his fame, and he died of fever on 6th April 1520, his 37th birthday.
Raphael was born on 6th April 1483 in the central Italian city of Urbino. Little is known of his mother, Maria Ciarla, but his father, Giovanni, was a poet and painter who worked intermittently at the elegant Court of Urbino. The Ducal Court had been a major centre of artistic activity since the middle of the 15th century, and these early links proved important to Raphael, who enjoyed the friendship and patronage of the Court throughout his short life.
By nature, Raphael was gentle and modest, and his boyhood familiarity with Court ways no doubt helped to foster the cultured demeanour that endeared him to several influential patrons. The young man must also have watched his father at work on his various commissions, and although Giovanni’s talent was quite modest, the atmosphere of artistic activity stimulated in the boy a desire to paint.
In 1491, Raphael’s mother died. By 1494, Giovanni too was dead, leaving Raphael an orphan at the age of 11. He was made a ward of his paternal uncle, a priest named Bartolomeo, although he seems to have remained closer to his maternal uncle Simone, with whom he corresponded for the rest of his life.
We know almost nothing of Raphael’s life during the following six years, but by May 1500, he had left Urbino and was almost certainly in Perugia, in the workshop of Piero Perugino. Perugino’s works have often been underrated in Modern times, but in the late 15th century he was one of Italy’s foremost painters.
Piero Perugino
When Raphael arrived in Perugia, Perugino was working on a series of frescos for the Collegio del Cambio (the Bankers’ Guild Hall), and Raphael may well have helped him.
Collegio del Cambio at Perugia
From the beginning of his time with Perugio, Raphael was working independently, or with his compatriot Evangelista di Piandimeleto,.
Raphael remained with Perugino for four about years, painting altarpieces and banners for churches in Perugia and for the neighbouring town of Città di Castello.
Chapel of San Severo
He also maintained his links with the Court of Urbino, painting several exquisite panels of saints for the crippled and impotent Duke, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro.
Guidobaldo da Montefeltro: painting by Raphael
But soon his thoughts turned further afield. From the start, Raphael’s career was marked by a keen desire to learn and to develop new ideas. Maybe he realised that Perugino had taught him all he could, and decided to move to Florence, where he arrived in the autumn of 1504 at the age of 21.
The experience of Florence must have been very exhilarating for the young artist, since these were times of great excitement in the Tuscan capital. Michelangelo’s marble David had just been installed in front of the Town Hall, and Leonardo was at work on the Battle of Anghhiari for the Great Council Chamber.
Michelangelo's David
Raphael responded eagerly to the challenge of his new surroundings. Fired by his experience of Leonardo’s drawings, he began to experiment with the theme of the Virgin and Child, producing the first of the beautiful Madonnas for which he is best known.
The Granduca Madonna
These Madonnas, together with the occasional portrait, provided the bulk of his commissions during his Florentine years.
In 1508, Raphael received a commission which was to change the course of his career – the decoration of the Papal Apartments, or ‘Stanze’ for Julius II. In 1507, Julius, in a characteristic outburst of rage, decided that he could no longer live in the Borgia Apartments, surrounded by the arrant self-trumpeting frescoes commissioned by his hated predecessor, Alexander VI.
In 1508, Raphael received a commission which was to change the course of his career – the decoration of the Papal Apartments, or ‘Stanze’ for Julius II. In 1507, Julius, in a characteristic outburst of rage, decided that he could no longer live in the Borgia Apartments, surrounded by the arrant self-trumpeting frescoes commissioned by his hated predecessor, Alexander VI.
Accordingly, in 1508 he enlisted a group of artists to decorate four rooms on the second floor of the Vatacan Pallice. The group included the Milanese artist Bramantino, the Sienise ‘Il Sodona’ and Raphael’s own master Perugino. Work was already in process when the young Raphael was summoned to the Papal Court in Rome and given full responsibility for the decorations. This included the right to paint over the work that already had been carried out, although with characteristic diplomacy Raphael left intact the ceiling paintings begun by Perugino.
It remains something of a mystery why Raphael, with little experience of working in fresco, and no large-scale works to his name, was entrusted with such a momentous task. But the liaison of Raphael with the formidable Julius produced a series of frescoes which rank as the most breathtaking creations of the High Renaissance. The decoration of the first room, the Stanza della Segnatura (the room where official documents were signed), occupied Raphael from the end of 1508 until 1511, and established his reputation as the foremost painter in Rome.
The Stanza della Segnatura
Around the time of its completion, Raphael entered into an arrangement with the Bolognese engraver Marcantonio Raimondi to make prints of some of his drawings which proved, usually, to consist of those he had made as preliminary studies for his works.
Preliminary drawing by Raphael
Raphael realized that reproductive prints were a valuable means of popularising his designs, as his best works - those in the Stanze – could only be seen by a handful of people within the Papal Court. The prints which Marcantonio made were very popular and contributed enormously to Raphael’s growing reputation.
Marcantonio Raimondi
In 1511 Raphael carried out his first major project for Agostino Chigi, a wealthy Sienese banker, whose amorous adventures seem to have been matched only by Raphael’s own. Chigi was a close friend and adviser of Julius II, and a man of great power who lived on a sumptuous scale. Between 1508 and 1511, he had a palatial villa built for himself by the architect Perruzi, just outside the walls of Rome.
Here he entertained in lavish style, astonishing his guests by throwing the silver plates into the nearby river at the end of every course. Unknown to them, nets had been discreetly installed to catch the precious objects, which were then retrieved at the end of the day.
To further enrich his villa, Chigi asked Raphael to paint a fresco in the garden loggia showing the Triumph of Galatea, loosely based on a scene from classical literature.
The success of this fresco led to a series of further commissions from Chigi, including the design of his funerary chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the decoration of a second loggia at his villa.
By the middle of 1511, Raphael had begun work on the second of the apartments for Julius II, the Stanza d’Eliodoro – ‘the room of Heliodorus’.
Julius did not live to see the room completed, for he died in February 1513, but the loss of this remarkable patron made little difference to Raphael’s career, for the new Pope, Leo X, swiftly recognised his talent.
The Stanza d’Eliodoro was completed under Leo’s auspices, and he rapidly engaged Raphael in a wealth of new and lucrative projects.
The year 1514 saw Raphael at the height of his career. 1st August he was formally appointed Papal Architect, in succession to his friend and fellow-countryman, Dramante, with responsibility for the fabric of St Peter’s. He was also commissioned to begin a third apartment in the Vatican, the Stanza dell’Incendio - ‘the room of fire’. At the same time he was producing some of his most beautiful Madonnas, such as the Madonna della Sedia (Madonna of the chair), and continued to be active as a portrait-painter.
Madonna della Sedia
In July of that year, he wrote to his uncle Simone: ‘I find my personal estate in Rome to be worth 3,000 gold ducats, with an income of 50 scudi a year, and as architect of St Paul’s another 300 gold ducats, and on top of this I am paid for my work what I see fit to ask.’
The same year, Raphael received a proposal of marriage. The influential Cardinal Bibbiena offered Raphael his niece Maria as a wife – a clear indication of Raphael’s status and popularity at the Papal Court. Not wishing to offend Bibbiena, Raphael reluctantly agreed, but repeatedly delayed the wedding. Maria died before the marriage could be formalised. Renowned for his charming manner, Raphael is reputed to have had innumerable love-affairs, although his one lasting attachment seems to have been to a courtesan, the legendary ‘Fornarina’.
La Fornarina, a voluptuous semi-nube portrait painted by Raphael in 1518, is reputedly his devoted mistress. In 1515, Leo X appointed Raphael as Conservator of Roman Antiquities in the city. The Pope was anxious to preserve fragments of marble bearing classic inscriptions and instructed Raphael to ensure that none of these should be used in new building work.
But
Raphael took the task further, and embarked on a project to
reconstruct the layout of Ancient Rome, as it had been in the Golden
Age. It was a monumental
task and together with his projects for the remodelling of St
Peter’s, diverted much of his attention from the business
of painting. But he found time to design for Leo the cartoons for a
set of 10 tapestries to
adorn the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel.
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
These cartoons were sent to the workshop of Pieter Van Aelst in Brussels for weaving into tapestries.
Because of the growing demands on his time, Raphael began to make increasing use of assistants in his painting commissions. The decoration of the third Papal Apartment, the Stanza dell’Incendio, carried out between 1514 and 1517, was executed largely by Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni, after Raphael’s designs.
And his final project for Chigi, a series of frescos for the vault of the second logia in Chigi’s villa, was executed entirely by assistants, although the design was certainly Raphael’s.
Raphael’s rivals were quick to point out the inferior quality of the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche. In January 1519, just after it had been completed, Leonardo Sellaio, a friend of Michelangelo, wrote to the sculptor in Florence that the Loggia was ‘shameful to a great artist, even worse than the last room in the palace’ (the Stanza dell’Incendio). Sellaio was hardly impartial, but even Vaseri noted that the frescos in the Loggia lacked Raphael’s characteristic graces and sweep, ‘because he had them coloured by others, after his own designs’.
However, when Raphael did turn his hand to painting, he proved triumphantly that his talent was still undiminished. In 1517 he was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de Medici to paint a panel of The Transfiguration, for his Cathedral Church at Narbonne in France.
The Transformation
The painting was barely finished when Raphael died, but when it was unveiled, it was unanimously acclaimed, and confirmed Raphael’s place as the supreme painter of his age.
It was to be his last major work. He died on his birthday, 6 April, just 37 years of age. At his own request, he was buried in the Pantheom, a classical building that he especially loved. In his honour, The Transfiguration was kept in Rome, in the church of San Pietro in Montorio.
The Pantheon
Raphael's harmonious compositions display a seemingly effortless skill and an apparently natural sense of ease and charm - qualities which reflect the elegant world of Castiglione's Courtier.
Today, Raphael is usually remembered as a painter of Madonnas. His enchanting variations on the theme of the Virgin and Child seem to sum up for us all that is best in Raphael's art. But the 19th-century view of Raphael was rather different. To the contemporary observer, the essence of Raphael's art lay in his ability to depict every kind of figure, from the demure young mother to the frightened old man.
Raphael Madonna
In his Dialogue on Painting published some 30 years after Raphael’s death, the art critic Ludovico Dolce wrote: ‘Michelangelo excels in one manner alone, that is in creating muscular nudes, skilfully foreshortened and often in vigorous movement…
Michelangelo's David
But Raphael painted figures of every sort, some delicate, some fearsome and some vigorous’. Vasari expressed similar views, but added that Raphael realised that the good painter ‘must be able to embellish his paintings with varied and unusual perspectives of buildings and landscapes, with lovely draperies… beautifully painted faces,
and many other things.'
Cardinal Tommaso Inghirami
In short, it was the range and variety of Raphael's work that was the secret of his genius. No one doubted that Michelangelo was supreme in representing the heroic male nude. And in Leonardo's works, the discerning viewer could admire the intelligence and grandeur of his underlying idea of concept, even where the works were unfinished. But Raphael had mastered all aspects of painting, including a whole variety of figures which 'perfectly expressed the character of those they represented'.
Agnolo Doni
It was partly this virtuosity that made Raphael the ideal ‘courtly’ artist. In his Book of the Courtier, Baldassar Castiglione had suggested that the courtier should be modestly accomplished in all pursuits and should not excel in one at the expense of the others. Raphael’s art can be seen as the pictorial equivalent of this idea. His quiet mastery of every branch of painting, together with his courtly manner, ensured his popularity with the many cultivated men who were familiar with Castiglione’s ideas.
Knight choosing between Virtue and Pleasure
Raphael developed his style by a painstaking process of observation and extraction, constantly studying the works of others and combining what he saw into his own distinctive style. He was never a mere imitator and his drawings include few ‘literal’ copies of other artists’ works. The motifs which inspired him were simply starting-points for his own ideas. By the time he came to draw them, they had already gone through various transformations, according to his particular needs.
Raphael developed his style by a painstaking process of observation and extraction, constantly studying the works of others and combining what he saw into his own distinctive style. He was never a mere imitator and his drawings include few ‘literal’ copies of other artists’ works. The motifs which inspired him were simply starting-points for his own ideas. By the time he came to draw them, they had already gone through various transformations, according to his particular needs.
In his early years, Raphael learnt much from Perugino, particularly in terms of composition. The carefully balanced groups of figures in his Betrothal of the Virgin, for example, clearly recall Perugino's famous Donation of the Keys.
(Compare below)
Raphael has also followed Perugino’s technique of giving variety to his figures by contrasting the angles of their heads.
But once in Florence, Raphael quickly left Perugino behind. Almost immediately, his works betray the influence of Leonardo, both in the softening of outlines and in the increased complexity of his compositions. His Madonnas of the period reflect his admiration for Leonardo’s ability to combine the different movements of a small group of figures within a compact triangular shape. But the most important lesson that Raphael learnt from Leonardo was that the emotions must be expressed through the body as a whole.
Raphael achieved this balanced variety by a process of painstaking preparation. The range of his drawings is immense. For major projects he made drawings for every stage of the composition. These include rapid sketches of heads and hands, drapery studies and numerous preliminary studies for groups of figures, often drawn over and readapted. Finally there would be the full-scale drawing, which would be pricked or traced through on to the surface to be painted.
Despite Raphael’s methodical approach, the quality that impressed many of Raphael’s contemporaries was the apparent naturalness and spontaneity of his works. The School of Athens and the Disputa reveal nothing of the elaborate preparation and planning that went into their making. The visitor who comes into the ‘Stanza’ seems to be confronted with a room full of living beings, reading or conversing with unselfconscious ease.
Stanza della Segnatura
This apparent artlessness or ‘facility’ was considered to be a supreme hallmark of Raphael’s art. And it was this quality, together with his virtuosity, that gave Raphael such a close affinity with the world of Castiglione’s Courtier. For Castiglione, the courtier could do everything with an apparent naturalness and ease, a ‘grace’ that made everything seem effortless.
It was not simply the figures that viewers admired in Raphael’s ‘Stanza’. Equal praise was reserved for his architectural backgrounds and the variety of his ‘special effects’. In describing the Liberation of Saint Peter, for example, Vasari wrote that Raphael ‘depicted so skilfully the play of shadows, the flickering reflection of the lights and the vaporous glare of the torches within the surrounding gloom, that he demonstrates his mastery over every other painter’.
The Liberation of Saint Peter
In his later works Raphael’s figures show a much greater robustness and solidity, probably reflecting the impact of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel. As with all Raphael’s work, however, this influence was absorbed gradually, and never took the form of direct copying. This process of assimilation is best illustrated by the Transfiguration.
The Transformation
Here we find echoes of Leonardo’s animated gestures and faces, Michelangelo’s majestic figures, and the noble forms of classical sculpture. But the combination of all these elements is Raphael’s own, and displays his unique narrative ability. Each figure is a distinct individual, characterised by every detail of dress, feature and expression. Each one reacts in a completely different way, perfectly in keeping with his character. It is this variety, so vividly portrayed, that embodies the genius of Raphael.
Picture Exhibition
This is the masterpiece of Raphael’s early period, where he showed that he had absorbed everything that Perugino could teach him and then surpassed him in lucidity of composition and delicacy of touch. Joseph’s staff has flowered, showing that he is favoured by God to be Mary’s husband. On the right, one of Mary’s rejected suitors breaks his staff over his knee.
The portrait of Agnolo Doni and a companion picture of his wife are the outstanding portraits Raphael produced before his move to Paris in 1508. Vasari records that Doni ‘although tight in other matters, spent willingly on pictures and statues, with which things he was much delighted’. Raphael has admirably caught his shrewdness.
This apparent artlessness or ‘facility’ was considered to be a supreme hallmark of Raphael’s art. And it was this quality, together with his virtuosity, that gave Raphael such a close affinity with the world of Castiglione’s Courtier. For Castiglione, the courtier could do everything with an apparent naturalness and ease, a ‘grace’ that made everything seem effortless.
It was not simply the figures that viewers admired in Raphael’s ‘Stanza’. Equal praise was reserved for his architectural backgrounds and the variety of his ‘special effects’. In describing the Liberation of Saint Peter, for example, Vasari wrote that Raphael ‘depicted so skilfully the play of shadows, the flickering reflection of the lights and the vaporous glare of the torches within the surrounding gloom, that he demonstrates his mastery over every other painter’.
In his later works Raphael’s figures show a much greater robustness and solidity, probably reflecting the impact of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel. As with all Raphael’s work, however, this influence was absorbed gradually, and never took the form of direct copying. This process of assimilation is best illustrated by the Transfiguration.
Here we find echoes of Leonardo’s animated gestures and faces, Michelangelo’s majestic figures, and the noble forms of classical sculpture. But the combination of all these elements is Raphael’s own, and displays his unique narrative ability. Each figure is a distinct individual, characterised by every detail of dress, feature and expression. Each one reacts in a completely different way, perfectly in keeping with his character. It is this variety, so vividly portrayed, that embodies the genius of Raphael.
Picture Exhibition
The Betrothal of the Virgin
This is the masterpiece of Raphael’s early period, where he showed that he had absorbed everything that Perugino could teach him and then surpassed him in lucidity of composition and delicacy of touch. Joseph’s staff has flowered, showing that he is favoured by God to be Mary’s husband. On the right, one of Mary’s rejected suitors breaks his staff over his knee.
Agnolo Doni and his wife
The portrait of Agnolo Doni and a companion picture of his wife are the outstanding portraits Raphael produced before his move to Paris in 1508. Vasari records that Doni ‘although tight in other matters, spent willingly on pictures and statues, with which things he was much delighted’. Raphael has admirably caught his shrewdness.
The Madonna of the Goldfinch
During the period when he was settled in Florence (1504-8), Raphael painted several lovely pictures of the Virgin and Child that show the influence of Leonardo in their pyramidal compositions. The goldfinch is a symbol of Christ’s Passion: according to legend it acquired its distinctive read spot when it pulled a thorn from Christ’s head and was splashed with blood.
A prestigious private commission for a church in Perugia, this was Raphael’s first attempt at dramatic multi-figure composition, and as the numerous surviving preparatory drawings show, he took immense pains over its planning. Many critics consider that his inexperience shows in a lack of unity, but there is no denying the beauty of the individual figures and the landscape background.
Raphael’s most original painting of the Virgin and Child, this celebrated altarpiece has for centuries been endlessly copied and reproduced. It was painted for the church of St Sixtus in Piacenza. St Sixtus is on the left (represented with the features of Julius II) and on the right is St Barbara. Between them float the Virgin and Child – a celestial vision of surpassing loveliness.
1483 - 1520
The Entombment
A prestigious private commission for a church in Perugia, this was Raphael’s first attempt at dramatic multi-figure composition, and as the numerous surviving preparatory drawings show, he took immense pains over its planning. Many critics consider that his inexperience shows in a lack of unity, but there is no denying the beauty of the individual figures and the landscape background.
The Sistine Madonna
Raphael’s most original painting of the Virgin and Child, this celebrated altarpiece has for centuries been endlessly copied and reproduced. It was painted for the church of St Sixtus in Piacenza. St Sixtus is on the left (represented with the features of Julius II) and on the right is St Barbara. Between them float the Virgin and Child – a celestial vision of surpassing loveliness.
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