The Lord God has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned (Isaiah 50:4 NKJV).
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino was born March 28 or April 6, 1483 in Urbino in central Italy. Known as Raphael, he was a prolific Renaissance painter. His father Giovanni Santi was court painter to the Duke. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight. His father soon remarried, but succumbed to death on August 1, 1494, when Raphael was eleven. His father’s workshop continued and, together with his stepmother, Raphael helped manage it from a very early age.
The Self-Portrait Raphael drew as a teen.
He had already shown talent, according to Giorgio Vasari, an Italian painter and historian, who says that Raphael had been “a great help to his father.” (A self-portrait drawn while a teenager shows his skill.) Vasari records that Raphael’s father placed him in the workshop of Pietro Perugino as an apprentice. The influence of Perugino on Raphael’s early work is apparent. Vasari wrote that it was impossible to distinguish between their hands at this period. Apart from stylistic resemblances, their techniques were very similar as well, probably due to Perugino’s instruction.
Raphael’s first documented work was part of the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. In the following years he painted works for other churches there, including the Mond Crucifixion. These are large works, some in fresco, which Raphael executed in the style of Perugino. He also painted many smaller paintings in these years, probably mostly for the connoisseurs in the Urbino court, like the Three Graces, and he began to paint Madonnas and portraits.
The Mond Crucifixion.
Raphael led a nomadic life, working in various cities in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence from about 1504.
Raphael was able to assimilate the influence of Florentine art while developing his own style. His greatest influence during those years was Leonardo da Vinci, who returned to the city from 1500 to 1506. Raphael’s figures began to take more dynamic and complex positions, and he drew studies of fighting nude men, one of the obsessions of the period in Florence. He borrowed the three-quarter length pyramidal composition of the just-completed Mona Lisa while retaining his own style.
By the end of 1508, Raphael moved to Rome, where he lived for the rest of his life, invited by the new Pope Julius II, perhaps at the suggestion of his architect Donato Bramante, then engaged on St. Peter’s Basilica, who came from just outside Urbino and was distantly related to Raphael. He was immediately commissioned by Julius to fresco the Pope’s private library at the Vatican Palace.
Study for The Three Graces.
This first of the famous Stanze or “Raphael Rooms” to be painted, now known as the Stanza della Segnatura, was made a stunning impact on Roman art, and remains generally regarded as his greatest masterpiece, containing The School of Athens, The Parnassus, and the Disputa. Raphael was then given further rooms to paint. He completed a sequence of three rooms, each with paintings on each wall and often the ceilings too, increasingly leaving the work of painting from his detailed drawings to the large and skilled workshop team he had acquired, who added a fourth room after his death.
The School of Athens
Raphael was clearly influenced by Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling in the course of painting the room. Vasari said Bramante let him in secretly. (Michelangelo disliked Raphael, claiming the younger man was conspiring against him.) The first section was completed in 1511 and the reaction to the genius of Michelangelo was the dominating question in Italian art for decades. Raphael, who had already shown his gift for absorbing influences into his own personal style, rose to the challenge perhaps better than any other artist. Michelangelo accused Raphael of plagiarism and years after Raphael’s death, complained in a letter that “everything he knew about art he got from me.”
Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael
The Vatican projects took most of Raphael’s time, although he painted several portraits, including Pope Julius II, considered one of his finest. Other rulers desired Raphael’s work, and King Francis I of France was sent two paintings as diplomatic gifts from the Pope. For Agostino Chigi, a banker and Papal Treasurer who was one of the wealthiest people in his world, he painted the Triumph of Galatea.
The Triumph of Galatea by Raphael.
Raphael built a workshop of fifty pupils and assistants, many of whom 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. Most of the artists were later scattered, and some killed, by the violent Sack of Rome in 1527.
Portrait of Pope Julian II by Raphael.
Raphael was one of the finest draftsmen in the history of Western art, and used drawings extensively to plan his compositions. When beginning to plan a large painting or fresco, 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. He used different drawings to refine his poses and layouts.
The Parnassus by Raphael.
When a final composition was achieved, scaled-up full-size cartoons were often made, which were then pricked with a pin and pounced with a bag of soot to leave dotted lines on the surface as a guide. He also made use, on both paper and plaster, of a blind stylus, scratching lines which leave only an indentation, but no mark.
Raphael died on April 6, 1520, at age 37. He is remembered as one of the trinity of masters of the Italian High Renaissance, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
Information for this article came from Wikipedia.
These articles are genius.
April is National Poetry Writing Month, and I will be participating again this year. It is my goal to write a poem a day throughout April. Just to let you know.
This icon of Saint George has become known as ‘The Black George’ because the horse is painted black rather than the white horse that has traditionally been used for St George Icons. Russia converted to Christianity in 988, and much of its religious art was inspired by the Byzantine tradition. This icon made in 1400 was discovered in 1959 in a village in northern Russia where it was being used as a window-shutter.
The Black George icon depicts Saint George and the Dragon which legends describe the saint slaying a dragon that demanded human sacrifices and thereby rescuing the princess chosen as the next offering. Some icons depicting the saint as a horseman killing the dragon date to the 12th century. The motif became popular especially in Greek, Georgian and Russian icon traditions. The saint is depicted in the style of a Roman cavalryman, and the saint is mostly shown on a white horse, facing right, but sometimes also on a black horse, or facing left. From its Eastern origins, it was introduced into the Western Christian tradition by the Crusades.
Note: this was a repost of an article from a now defunct website. In a perfect world, there would be a link here to the original article. I miss Joy of Museums terribly and mourn its demise.
Doing double duty with the Tuesday Photo Challenge.
What does it take to become a successful author or artist or musician or actor? Must you have talent?
The top two definitions of talent on Dictionary.com are “a special natural ability or aptitude” and “a capacity for achievement and success.” People think of talent as an affinity you’re born with. You’re either artistic or you’re not. You have a knack for learning foreign languages, or you don’t. You’re a natural athlete, or you’ll always be chosen last for stickball. The first thing you write will immediately be snapped up by a publisher, or nothing penned by you will ever see light of day.
Fortunately, the reality is a lot more positive.
Success in any field of endeavor can be achieved by a number of approaches in combination. In general, SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS:
Does talent play any role in success? Of course. But there are many talented adults who still live in their parents’ basements. Talent doesn’t guarantee excellence.
Anna Chui says, “To call someone ‘talented’ can also be an act of rudeness. It implies that the person did not have to rely on their own hard work to achieve success, which belittles their efforts and shows an ignorance of how personal growth and development really happens behind the scenes. Calling someone talented also lets yourself off the hook and gives you permission to be lazy – after all, if someone else is talented and you are not, why even bother trying to achieve a similar level of success?”
So don’t worry whether you have talent. Follow your dream, but be willing to work strategically and hard.
Now it’s your turn. Is there a strategy to success you would recommend that I haven’t listed above? Share in the comments below.
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Friends, starting next Monday I will be participating in the yearly April A to Z Blogging Challenge. And, as usual, for me (this is my fourth year taking the challenge), I will be adhering to my blog’s focus on the the arts and the creative process. The challenge will come from writing about a topic that starts with the day’s letter. I hope you will stop by daily to check out ARHtistic License and the other participants in the challenge.
ARHtistic License 