What's in a masterpiece? Or, Some paintings by Raphael in Rome by Lois Gregory
Date: 08/01/2010
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It is very ironic, yet beautiful paintings by famous Renaissance artists often cause modern-day viewers consternation and confusion: What does it mean? Is there something hidden there? Why is it famous? Is it beautiful? Or, perhaps for viewers a bit more accustomed to art: How do you know it is by so-and-so? What makes his style distinct from the others of his time? What's the Renaissance about, anyway?
These are all good questions that are not nearly so uninformed as they may at first appear (and they don't require the usual apologies by the asker). Among other things, they refer to the gap between the centuries and the countless subtle and not-so-subtle differences between our world and theirs. Thus with difficulty, we only partly recognize our ancestors. But, in contemporary society these questions also derive from the outrageously inflated status and monetary value assigned to ''masterpieces.'' It is nearly impossible to look at these, or any other artworks called famous without also searching for some extraordinary, pictorially non-existent value—value that can only be found within the displacements of our modern consumer culture, its obsessions with reproducing visual imagery, and such aspects of our world. However little these considerations have to do with the paintings themselves, they actually condition how we look at art and what we think we have to look for.
Thus the questions are not amiss. However the irony persists because Renaissance paintings were made precisely to communicate, to be performative demonstrations, to put before the viewer numerous ideas—from the religious and philosophical to the courtly and political—in a pictorial form that might readily engage the viewer's senses as well as his intellect. Indeed the painters in the Renaissance sought to present even the most abstract theological ideas or political allegories in worldly, material forms. They used not only the naturalism of three-dimensional space, solid figures, and convincing movement they also delineated their pictorial stories with very current and material signs taken right from their own surroundings. So that for instance, the elegant manners and grace prized in the princely courts provided a set of gestures and attitudes for expressing the spiritual elevation of the holy figures, or the refinement and social position that a rich merchant demonstrated with a cloak of deep black might in a painting help identify a painted character of similar standing. (From early in the Renaissance blue frequently clothed the Madonna because the pigment was monetarily valuable, a costly sign of status). These are not symbols where x=y, but metaphors where secular material value found its way into painting as spiritual expression. It speaks of time and a mode of understanding the universe that were deeply man-centered.
The paintings of Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520) in my opinion almost literally perform the attitudes, the new role of the artist, the culture of classical revival and citation, and the political theater of the Renaissance. They wear—a bit more than most—their meaning on their metaphorical sleeve, if you will. Take for example his fresco in the Chigi chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace, not far from Piazza Navona. Have a long, thorough look at it and you will find a painting that in many ways explains what a Renaissance masterpiece is about. Less famous than his ''School of Athens'' or the other frescoes in the papal apartments at the Vatican, this fresco was probably painted at roughly the same time, c. 1514 (most recent scholarship pushes the date back closer to 1511), and it happens to be my favorite. You will have to work a bit at getting a view, as Santa Maria della Pace is not the easiest church to visit. It is open to the public only from 9am-12 noon Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and the custodian who jealously protects his little church, tends to place his car across the narrow entrance, giving the appearance that building is not in fact accessible. But, if you arrive during the proper hours and the church door is open, don't be put off (or, rather do be reminded that this a church and not a tourist venue) and gingerly slide between the car and the stone planters. It is worth the trouble.
Once inside, you will see that like most every other church in Italy, the side aisles house small chapels each with its own decoration, containing an altar and often one or more funerary monuments. Each belonged to a wealthy patron who could afford to bestow large sums on the church and commission artwork for his corner of it. It was a private commission that had also a public purpose: to gain the social prestige and (hopefully) the eternal salvation that such uses of one's money were believed to confer. Agostino Chigi the richest businessman in Rome in the early 1500s and financier to Pope Julius II (1503-1513) certainly had reason to show a pious use of his wealth. He chose, not surprisingly, to put his family chapels in churches closely connected with Julius's family, the della Rovere: this church was built by Julius's uncle Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) and Chigi's mortuary chapel stands in Santa Maria del Popolo, where other della Rovere are interred.
In Santa Maria della Pace our fresco makes up one part of Chigi's chapel, which is the first chapel on the right as you enter. The chapel consists of the altar niche constructed with classical forms; sculptures of Saints Catherine and Bernardino and a bronze Resurrection (later additions); and all the painted decoration above the niche to the level of the church windows. Raphael painted the Sibyls, the ancient prophetesses, who appear to be sitting atop the actual stone arch of the niche. They occupy a frieze-like space in this middle zone and are surmounted by paintings of four Old Testament Prophets.
Now that you have your bearings, look closely at Raphael's fresco (don't photograph it!). Representing four sibyls with angels and putti discussing the texts they display, the painting creates a strikingly naturalistic three-dimensional space. Delightfully convincing, carefully proportioned and composed figures move and turn freely. It seems as if the prophetesses actually occupy the place, implicitly locating the human viewer in direct proximity to the prophesies these ancients reveal with their various scrolls, tablets, and books. The tangibility of the space and its mythical inhabitants follows the fundamental Renaissance principle of using the concrete, experiential space of man's world as the locus for spiritual explanation and representation. Also typical of the period was the narrative that both makes reference to ancient figures and texts, and uses them to prefigure Christian theology.
Aside from these Renaissance pre-requisites, Raphael also demonstrated his knowledge of the most talked-about fresco in Rome at the time, Michelangelo's painting on the vault of the Sistine Chapel. The ceiling was partly completed and temporarily unveiled at Julius's order at the end of 1510 or beginning of 1511. It astonished all who saw it for its powerful figures whose bold torsion and pronounced gestures created an intensely forceful version of the idealized human form. It was a pictorial conception and figural innovation that expressed a terrible raw power that couldn't fail to captivate (and perhaps caught something of the essence of brute papal authority in this epoch of warrior popes and unflinching mercenaries). In addition to the central scenes depicting the creation, fall, and redemption of man, the ceiling also contains representations of Old Testament prophets and ancient sibyls. Thus Michelangelo's startling success formed part of the context for Raphael's sibyls.
From the point of view of the patron, Agostino Chigi would have wanted to make reference to Julius's commission in his own chapel to stress his concordance with the Pope. And, as a sophisticated art patron of the era, Chigi would have sought to show off his connoisseurship and refinement by means of such artistic dialogue, employing furthermore another papal protégée and fashionable artist to do the job. From the point of view of the artist, Raphael most certainly would have aspired to make his own artistic comment on the papal ceiling. Indeed, he appears to have cited Michelangelo's sibyls clearly enough so as to be able to make evident his own version of how they might be painted.
Frequently studies of Raphael fall into the practice of reconstructing chronologies for his paintings based on the presence or absence of characteristics he could have seen in the work of Michelangelo. In these cases Raphael's work is conceived as a pale second to his powerful peer, without whose influence his paintings would have remained more rigid and less volumetric in the manner of his early Renaissance masters from the Marches and Umbria. Such interpretations in my opinion miss the point. Of course Raphael saw, was inspired by, and sought to incorporate what he learned not just from Michelangelo but also from his father, Giovanni Santi, Luca Signorelli, Perugino, Pintoricchio, and da Vinci. The Renaissance emphasis on the individual grew as Raphael did, consequently in his time the role of the artist became ever more one of overt competition between rivals, individual contribution, and responsibility to surpass the master. Raphael enthusiastically acted out this evolving part, striving very ambitiously to make a place for himself in the most prized circles of every city he inhabited. His references to Michelangelo's work should be seen in this light, they are not straightforward imitations or attempted imitations, they are competitions and assertions of Raphael's improvements on the reigning master. So we do better to look not at what he copied, but at what he did to those forms he borrowed. This will help us see the performative aspect of the painting as demonstration, and allow us to identify traits that are characteristic of Raphael.
Compare Michelangelo's sibyls with those by Raphael: Michelangelo's are massive, solid, and strongly characterized by their innovative poses, rotating boldly in three-dimensional space and gesturing in relation to their prophetic texts.
Raphael clearly invoked the model of the contorted sibyl, and according to some, even imitated the Cumaean Sibyl quite directly. We can see that he was likewise influenced by the dynamic use of space in the Sistine Chapel. But, instead of those obsessively singular sibyls who stand as models of sculptural severity, Raphael created sibyls that are both individually and collectively expressive, extremely graceful and elegant, and positively rhythmic in their collective movement. They practically dance across the frieze, alternating their foremost shoulders and shift of weight, conveying an overall harmony that yet preserves distinctions in their poses and characters. The harmonious flow of the figures and the balance of their severally swirling draperies can't help but convey a sense of visual excitement and joy—joy which becomes the narrative exaltation of the sibyls' prophesy. This is to say nothing of the colors, which are delicately complementary instead of acrid and sharp as Michelangelo used them.
Raphael made a demonstration of his manner of rendering prophetesses, and it is a critique of Michelangelo's, suggesting that what was needed was grace, harmony, and elegant interaction. It is not impossible that Raphael considered it his aesthetic challenge to his rival in Rome. Certainly he had done such things before. While working in Perugia and Florence prior to his Roman debut, Raphael had made pictorial challenges to the work of Perugino, the most successful artist there. He bested the older master and thereafter received in his stead all the important commissions. The qualities Raphael stressed in his sibyls were also those that expressed his era's ideal of gentile comportment and refined manners and indeed were traits of Raphael's persona as well. Again contrary to the solitary, unkempt, and cantankerous nature of Michelangelo, Raphael's famously sweet temperament and personal delicacy had already made him a favorite in the court of Urbino, among the nobles of Perugia and the merchants of Florence.
There is another Roman fresco commission nearby in the church of Sant'Agostino that shows clear reference to Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel. Raphael was commissioned by an Apostolic protonotary from Luxemburg called Johann Goritz to paint the Prophet Isaiah. The image of the prophet was conceived as part of Goritz's decoration of the third pier on the left-hand side of the nave. The lower part of the pier was to consist of an altar to St. Anne with a sculptural group by Sansovino depicting St. Anne with the Madonna and Child. The decorative program also included Goritz's dedicatory inscriptions in Greek and Latin and the Hebrew text displayed on the Prophet's scroll. Together with the artworks they demonstrate his desire to make a permanent monument to himself as a learned humanist patron of the arts in addition to leaving a perpetual offering for his salvation. The Greek inscription at the top dedicates the monument ''To Anne, Mother of the Virgin, to the Virgin, Mother of God, to Christ, Ransomer of Johann Goritz; the Latin inscription at the bottom reinforces the idea: ''To Jesus, God, and Son of God, to His Virgin Mother, and to His Maternal Grandmother, Johann Goritz from Germany, from Luxemburg, Apostolic protonotary, has given and dedicated this. He donated an endowment, vessels, and vestments for a continued sacrifice, 1512.''(1)
The Isaiah is a less successful work than the sibyls; we see the forceful pose that clearly recalls Michelangelo, yet Raphael's own stamp leaves a less inspired imprint here. The delicacy of the features and colors do not add up to gracefulness so much as they leave the figure it a bit tentative. Still, it helps us develop a sense of Raphael's particular style because it shows again that strength and power were not his foremost goals, however much those characteristics were captivating Roman art patrons at that moment under the spell of Michelangelo. Thus while he employed a strongly articulated physical form and sense of movement, he did not do so for their own sake but in fact to emphasize balance: the twisting torso and muscular forearm counterbalance the unstable, Michelangelo-motivated movement of the lower body, and both help to frame the text the Prophet holds. And part of this painting's job was to display that Hebrew text, which comes from Isaiah's Old Testament prophecy and probably was chosen by Goritz (and his friend and papal theologian, Giles of Viterbo) as an educated reference to a medieval tradition of using these lines as a funerary supplication. (2)
In these two frescoes then both patron and artist overtly demonstrated their sophistication and their participation in fashionable humanist circles where citations of classical culture and their own new versions of it were prominently displayed, literally on the surface like badges; where pictorial representations of abstractions were made in forms taken from man's own world and the palpable experience of his senses and his era's sensibilities. We as modern viewers can therefore arrive at a certain level of comprehension by such looking as we have done here. Of course, there are still many complexities to any work of art that will always require historical study to be understood and interpreted. But, at times some complexities call attention to themselves and point toward questions that might fruitfully be investigated. I think this is the case here. Even if the normal viewer who has not studied the period will probably miss the sophisticated textual and figural quotation, she or he can see that ideas such as classical quotation and the interplay of ancient and biblical knowledge were extremely relevant—precisely because these pictures practically announce their prominence. They strive for a combination of formal beauty, mythical and biblical personae, and overtly legible passages in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew that can't help but direct us at least to wonder about the relevant issues.
Yet maybe this is also where the sense of mystery comes from. That is to say, all these apparent clues and references are right there before our eyes, while to modern people historically removed from the original context of the art, they will seem just that: clues and signs that might suggest the presence of a secret or a mystery. But for better or worse, paintings and history rarely comply with our current fiction-writer fantasies of them. Our bafflement and imperfect comprehension of artworks comes from the ineffable differences in cultural modes of perception and thought, and the necessarily unbridgeable distances between past and present. If we are stymied it is not because the artworks were designed to hide something. Indeed the historical investigation of art reveals that it was meant to communicate, not to conceal its meaning.
Of course the sense of a lurking mystery is greater in proportion to the fame of the work of art, largely as a result of the impossibly inflated consumer- and market-based values mentioned earlier. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is a good example. Raphael's Stanze suffer these side-affects of fame, too. As frescoes for Pope Julius's (and then Leo X's) private apartments, these images are in fact loaded with flattering references to the Pope's humanism, his own papal history, his court of celebrated scholars and artists, in addition to being narrative depictions of ideas. In other words, they are dense and many layered. Yet here too the multiple references were meant to show themselves, they demonstrated by various formal, narrative, and iconographic means the interplay of philosophies, sophisticated connections between ancient and modern systems of thought, heady citations, and savvy aesthetic sense. In fact they helped the pope perform the humanist side of his character (and Raphael his innovation, refinement, and mastery of dynamic figural dramas). But again, in our time many of these ideas and philosophies seem arcane and the very concept of contemplative looking has been all but banished, thus the frescoes appear much less readily communicative than they originally were. An adequate explanation, however, would take another entire essay and I have no intention of abusing the good will of the reader who is still with me at this point.
Instead, one last example of Raphael's art and career that is not at the Vatican but rather in the Borghese Gallery. It is called the Baglioni Deposition, or the Transportation to the Tomb, or simply the Deposition, from 1507. Before Raphael received his much sought-after invitation to come to Rome at the behest of Pope Julius II, he was already an ambitious rising star, seeking out ever grander cities of art in which to join the fray. Raphael lived and worked in Perugia and then Florence during the period of roughly 1502-1507, after leaving both his home town of Urbino and his first city of important commissions, Citta' di Castello. While in Florence Raphael maintained his ties to Perugia and continued to receive commissions from its leading families. The noble lady Atalanta Baglioni was one such patron. For this grieving mother of a son violently killed in feud, Raphael produced the stunning Baglioni Deposition. It is here in Rome thanks to the unscrupulous collecting practices of cardinal Scipione Borghese who, in 1608, had it spirited away in the dead of night from its proper location in the Church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia.
Unlike the Sibyls and the Prophet Isaiah, this is an oil painting and not a fresco. The difference in medium is relevant because each medium requires its particular techniques and each produces its own effects. Fresco refers to the use of inorganic mineral pigments that are bound with water and applied directly to a wall, which has been carefully prepared with a layer of fresh wet plaster. The surface must be wet for the technique to work properly, thus the artist works quickly and his effects are achieved by such things as expert use of shading, legible poses, clear disposition of figures in space. It has often been considered the real proof of a painter's ability. It is not however a technique adapted to surface detail, textures, and infinite tonalities of color. Oil painting by contrast, is ideal for these effects because the image is built up in many, many layers of pigments bound with oil. It is slow work that requires long drying times between layers. Raphael mastered both, in addition to the traditional medium of tempera. In this oil painting you will see that he carefully elaborated minute details of foreground leaves and plants, decorative borders on fabrics, differentiation of textures, and background landscape incidents. He used them to enrich the scene, but also to lend a sense of specificity, to give the feel an actual event unfolding. They are details that help make a narrative, or an enactment of a story that was traditionally represented in the same way with standard poses, etc.
Raphael arranged his figures to show the crucified Jesus with his grief-stricken mourners who are in the act of transporting the body. While there was a well-known model for depicting this event, Raphael also inserted non-traditional elements in order to make a dramatic parallel to the tragedy of Atalanta Baglioni's son, his violent death, and her anguished recovery of his body from the streets of Perugia. (3) As the action in between the more conventional depositions at the foot of the cross or lamentations and/or resurrections at the tomb, the transportation becomes—almost by its nature—about the unfolding of events, the passage of actual actions, the necessary details. This heightens the drama and the human aspect of the emotions, which are captured in the straining poses of the figures, the facial expressions, and the turbulent blowing draperies and hair that contrast the perfect stillness and order of the landscape. There is a kind of visual tension, or vibration almost, that is created by the tense extended limbs that carry the weight of Jesus next to the lifeless curvilinear forms of the dead and swooning figures. It is accentuated by the opposing movements of the bodies and inclinations of the heads. Together they give us a strong feel of a halting procession, heaving back and forth as a group, united in its misery and staggering physically and spiritually. At the same time, Raphael also arranged the overall grouping very carefully so that the scene has solidity and order, preserving the gravity and unity in an image whose dramatic poses might otherwise unbalance it: Notice that there are main axes along which the figures are organized. An X form is created by the subtle alignment of hands, heads, and limbs that correspond with the diagonal lines of Jesus' body on the left side of the painting; and on the right side, by the prominent opposing line of the tall youth that is echoed in the falling form of Mary and the heads of the figures who bend toward her. Raphael thus subtly anchors a composition that is simultaneously full of movement.
As distinct from our frescoes, this biblical story incorporates no text, no mythological figures, and instead is fully concerned with the representation of a biblical event and the grief that accompanies it. While it may contain a private reference to Atalanta Baglioni's personal loss, it is very unlike the other commissions we looked at that were designed to show off literary, philosophical and religious meanings in figural compositions. As we saw, those were commissions with clear humanist pretensions. The Baglioni Deposition by contrast represents a more plainly devotional image. While both types of commissions were rooted in the same constellation of cultural ideas and consequently shared the same aesthetic principles, we can speak of differences between them. Those with overtly classical references and showy interest in ancient languages formed one type, and the more purely devotional another. This second type, of which the Baglioni Deposition is an example, consisted of depictions of traditional religious stories: nativities, crucifixions, annunciations, Madonna and Child images, etc. Raphael's contribution to this genre was extensive. As we see with this Deposition, Raphael could take the conventional scene and infuse it with feeling, thanks to his masterful ability to create images of the human form that are expressive yet idealized and spaces that are naturalistic yet abstractly harmonious, having always an air of graceful refinement. Whether for posturing humanists or grieving mothers, Raphael painted the Renaissance's self-image of sophistication, gentility, and balanced interaction, performing all the while his own ambitious identification with the same.
Notes
(1). The translation comes from Virginia Anne Bonito, ''The Saint Anne Altar in St. Augustine in Rome: A New Discovery,'' Burlington Magazine 22/933 (December, 1980): 805-812. The discovery refers to the original placement of the altar and its relationship to Raphael's fresco, which had been obscured by 18th century restorations by Vanvitelli and only rediscovered a few decades ago. Between 1756-60 this [devastatingly over-employed] ''restorer'' worked to cut all the frescoes on the piers so that they would fit in matching bronze frames. He also removed numerous votive altars and monuments among other things. The St. Anne monument is now back where it belongs, in conjunction with Raphael's fresco. But parts of the fresco are lost—most importantly, lower portions that were designed originally to extend into the triangular spaces (spandrels) over the arch that frames the sculpture.
(2) See Bonito.
(3) I owe this observation to Antonio Forcellino, Raffaello: Una Vita Felice (Roma: Editori Laterza, 2006), 109-112. He notes that Raphael worked within the strict iconographic traditions for such scenes, while yet including a figure that was not at all part of that tradition: the tall youth, richly dressed and carrying the lower end of drapery that suspends Jesus. Also, the well-known prototype for the transportation of a dead figure was a classical relief attributed to Meleager that Forcellino believes Raphael would have known, at least by way of the early Renaissance painter Mantegna's engravings that it inspired. (112)
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Selected bibliography
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Holly, Michael Ann. ''Past Looking,'' Critical Inquiry 16 no. 2 (winter, 1990):
371-396.
Bonito, Virginia Anne. ''The St. Anne altar in St. Agostino in Rome: A New
Discovery,'' Burlington Magazine 22 no. 933 (December 1980): 805-812.
Chapman, Hugo, Tom Henry, Caro Plazzotta. Raphael: From Urbino to Rome (New
Haven and London: National Gallery and Yale University Press, 2004).
Cranston, Jodi. ''Tropes of Revelation in Raphael's Transfiguration,'' Renaissance
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Forcellino, Antonio. Raffaello: Una Vita Felice (Roma: Editori Laterza, 2006).
Gombrich, Ernst. ''The Renaissance Conception of Progress,'' Norm and Form
Rowland, Ingrid. ''Render Unto Caesar the Things Which are Caesar's: Humanism
and the Arts in the Patronage of Agostino Chigi,'' Renaissance Quarterly 39
n. 4 (winter, 1986): 673-730.
Strinati, Claudio. Raffaello (Firenze: Giunti Editore, 1995).
Zucker, Mark. ''Raphael and the Beard of Julius II,'' Art Bulletin 59 no. 4
(December, 1977): 524-533.
Vasari, Giorgio. Le Vite dei Piu' Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori e Architetti (ed. 1568), Edizione integrale con introduzione di Maurizio Marini, (Roma: Grandi
Tascabili Economici Newton, 1991). |
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