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Apr 18, 2024 · School of Athens, fresco (1508–11) painted by artist Raphael, in the Stanza della Segnatura, a room in Pope Julius II’s private apartments in the Vatican. It is perhaps the most famous of all of Raphael’s paintings and one of the most significant artworks of the Renaissance.
- Overview
- Early years at Urbino
- Apprenticeship at Perugia
Raphael was one of the most talented painters of the Italian 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. He was also a popular architect during his lifetime.
What is Raphael famous for?
Raphael is probably most famous for his paintings, including Madonna in the Meadow (1505/06), School of Athens (c. 1508–11), Sistine Madonna (1512/13), The Transfiguration (1516–20), and Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514–15).
What was Raphael’s family like?
Raphael was born to Giovanni Santi, a painter, and Magia di Battista Ciarla, both of whom died when Raphael was a child. Biographer Giorgio Vasari indicated that Raphael was later engaged to a niece of a friend who was a cardinal, but Raphael continuously put off the wedding.
How was Raphael educated?
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. He gave his son his first instruction in painting, and, before his death in 1494, when Raphael was 11, he had introduced the boy to humanistic philosophy at the court.
Urbino had become a centre of culture during the rule of Duke Federico da Montefeltro, who encouraged the arts and attracted the visits of men of outstanding talent, including Donato Bramante, Piero della Francesca, and Leon Battista Alberti, to his court. Although Raphael would be influenced by major artists in Florence and Rome, Urbino constituted the basis for all his subsequent learning. Furthermore, the cultural vitality of the city probably stimulated the exceptional precociousness of the young artist, who, even at the beginning of the 16th century, when he was scarcely 17 years old, already displayed an extraordinary talent.
The date of Raphael’s arrival in Perugia is not known, but several scholars place it in 1495. The first record of Raphael’s activity as a painter is found there in a document of December 10, 1500, declaring that the young painter, by then called a “master,” was commissioned to help paint an altarpiece to be completed by September 13, 1502. It is clear from this that Raphael had already given proof of his mastery, so much so that between 1501 and 1503 he received a rather important commission—to paint the Coronation of the Virgin for the Oddi Chapel in the church of San Francesco, Perugia. The great Umbrian master Pietro Perugino was executing the frescoes in the Collegio del Cambio at Perugia between 1498 and 1500, enabling Raphael, as a member of his workshop, to acquire extensive professional knowledge.
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In addition to this practical instruction, Perugino’s calmly exquisite style also influenced Raphael. The Giving of the Keys to St. Peter, painted in 1481–82 by Perugino for the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican palace, inspired Raphael’s first major work, The Marriage of the Virgin (1504). Perugino’s influence is seen in the emphasis on perspectives, in the graded relationships between the figures and the architecture, and in the lyrical sweetness of the figures. Nevertheless, even in this early painting, it is clear that Raphael’s sensibility was different from his teacher’s. The disposition of the figures is less rigidly related to the architecture, and the disposition of each figure in relation to the others is more informal and animated. The sweetness of the figures and the gentle relation between them surpasses anything in Perugino’s work.
Three small paintings done by Raphael shortly after The Marriage of the Virgin—Vision of a Knight, Three Graces, and St. Michael—are masterful examples of narrative painting, showing, as well as youthful freshness, a maturing ability to control the elements of his own style. Although he had learned much from Perugino, Raphael by late 1504 needed other models to work from; it is clear that his desire for knowledge was driving him to look beyond Perugia.
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- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
People also ask
What is Raphael famous for?
Where did Raphael paint School of Athens?
Why did Raphael come to work for the Pope?
Who commissioned Raphael in 1513?
Pope Julius II (reigned 1503–1513), commissioned a series of highly influential art and architecture projects in the Vatican. The painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo and of various rooms by Raphael in the Apostolic Palace are considered among the masterworks that mark the High Renaissance in Rome.
Aug 21, 2020 · The artist continued to attract commissions, especially for portraits and these include his influential and intimate rendering of Pope Julius II of c. 1512 CE (now in London's National Gallery) and one of the courtier Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514 CE) which is now in the Louvre, Paris (see below).
- Mark Cartwright
Oct 4, 2022 · Raphael is therefore allowed to paint a portrait of Julius II taking into account the character’s psychology and giving the pope a more intimate and less official image. This is why in the portrait, now preserved in London, the pope looks tired and pensive. WHERE THE PORTRAIT OF JULIUS II BY RAFFAELLO IS NOW KEPT.
Mar 18, 2024 · The paintings, which represent a climax in Western art, were, in form and conception, a product of the artistic symbiosis of Michelangelo and the Pope. By 1509 Raphael, introduced to Julius, had begun his masterpieces for the Pope, the frescoes in three rooms of the Vatican.
Dec 22, 2020 · By 1508 the young artist, already well-known in Florence for the brilliant Madonnas he had painted there, received a fateful summons from Pope Julius II: a commission to paint his Vatican...
