vince’s ear

Widely considered to have expressed the most of the ideals of the High Renaissance, Raphael’s talent was truly a force to be reckoned with, and competed with his much older contemporaries Leonardo and Michelangelo. Like the other men, Raphael was trained in several disciplines to include painting as well as sculpting, and receiving a humanist education.

The delicate grace with which he portrays the Madonna in the Madonna of the Chair shows a mastery of painterly skill. It shows Mary, the Mother of Jesus who she holds, with Jesus’ cousin Saint John the Baptist wearing contemporary clothes in an elegant chair. It depicts a mother and child well at ease and comfortable, and invites the viewer to feel the same. This is different from Leonardo who often portrayed people with a deep complexity, and Michelangelo whose powerful subjects were far from at ease. He also differed in personality. While the other two artists were solitary people, Raphael was known to be quite sociable and well liked.

Pope Julius II would call on Raphael to come to Rome in 1508, where he stayed for the rest of his life. There he was commissioned to decorate the walls of the Stanze in the Vatican, and he completed his most prized work, “The School of Athens” (see above). The popularity of the work in the Vatican put Raphael’s work in such high demand that many of his paintings from then on were executed by assistants. In his later years, he was wholly responsible for many of his portraits, with subtle beauty that rivals those of Leonardo. His work after the Vatican “Raphael Rooms” would later lay the foundations for Mannerism, depicted the ideals of Christianity with the grace of Classical times. Raphael is one of the most influential Renaissance artists and is considered by many to be the greatest painter of all time.