Raphael: A Life in Art | Curator Matthias Wivel

On Raphael's death on April 6th, 1520, it was reported that the Pope, Leo X, sunk into grief while the very foundations of the Vatican cracked. Admired by popes, princes, and painters, over a career cut short to just 20 years, Raphael's loss generated an extraordinary response. The greatest humanist of the day spoke of the loss of the savior of Rome. His body was carried in torchlit funeral procession to a mass at the Vatican, followed by burial in the Pantheon. Just 37 at the time of his death, Raphael is best known for his paintings and frescoes, and to an extent, his drawings, but he was also an architect and archaeologist, and he provided designs in a wide variety of media, from sculpture and prints to tapestries and mosaic. He's one of the giants of the Italian Renaissance. Raphael was born in the Marca region in Italy in the spring of 1483. His family lived in Rubino. Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, was painter at the cultured court of Federico de Montefeltro. Orphaned at 11, by his late teens, Raphael had taken over the family workshop and was working independently on major commissions in the region, primarily paintings, including a small panel of Saint Sebastian for private devotion, and the large-scale Monde altarpiece, depicting the crucified Christ, which Raphael completed at about age 20. In the early 1500s, he was also providing designs for others to paint from, including Domenico Alfani, and notably, the older master, Pinturicchio. Raphael increasingly based himself in Florence from 1504. He initially went to learn from the artists there, most significantly, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. In paintings like this portrait of a woman, we see reflected Leonardo's interest in expressing the inner life of his sitters. The impact of their techniques and composition of his work was soon apparent. The Bridgewater Madonna is clearly influenced by Michelangelo, with its dynamic, expressive figures in motion. In Florence, Raphael found endlessly inventive and harmonious ways to arrange the Virgin and Child. This motif was to be a recurring and powerful theme throughout the rest of his career. From this period, many pen and ink drawings survive. The medium, about which he learned much from Leonardo, allowed Raphael to express himself freely, and his designs became increasingly complex and three-dimensional, as we can see in works like this Holy Family with a Pomegranate, or this Lamentation of Christ. These increasingly elaborate compositions would find their ultimate expression in his later large-scale works for the papacy and wealthy patrons in and beyond Rome. Raphael's reputation had continued to grow, and in 1508, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II. He was still only 25 years old. Raphael was commissioned to fresco the pope's private apartments, the stanze, at the Vatican Palace. The first room he completed, the pope's personal library, the so-called Stanza della Segnatura, is regarded as Raphael's greatest masterpiece. It includes the School of Athens, in which Raphael evokes a gathering across time of the greatest philosophers and natural scientists of Greek antiquity, with Plato and Aristotle at the center. In other parts of the room, he depicts historical, contemporary, and allegorical figures related to the themes of theology, poetry, and law. Raphael carefully planned his composition for the stanze and drawings. These drawings illustrate his inventiveness, but also the hard work that went into arranging these grand compositions. What set Raphael apart from his contemporaries was his ability to make the contrived seem real, but also his range and his ability to collaborate and organize a business. He established a large workshop, which gradually became an enterprise, collaborating with craftsmen and artists across different fields of expertise, including sculpture, printmaking, and painting. He was also a consummate networker who secured commissions from men of great power. It was in Rome that Raphael painted some of his most famous portraits. His portrait of Pope Julius II came to define papal portraiture and the portraiture of power in the following centuries. While the sensitive portrait of his friend, the writer and humanist Baldassare Castiglione, illustrates Raphael's interest in the human connections he forged with friends. When Pope Julius II died in 1513, he was succeeded by Leo X, with whom Raphael formed an even closer relationship. Requests for work continued to flow. In 1515, Raphael was commissioned to design tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, illustrating scenes from the lives of the Saints Peter and Paul. The 10 cartoons, that is full-scaled colored designs for these tapestries, of which only seven survive, are considered amongst his most significant works. At the age of 31, Raphael was appointed architect of Saint Peter's Basilica. Little of what he designed has survived, but for a period, he was the most important architect in Rome, offering his services to a small circle around the papacy. For Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the future Clement VII, he designed the Villa Madama, a lavish hillside retreat outside Rome. It was a hugely ambitious project that was never finished. For Agostino Chichi, the wealthiest man in Italy and banker to the Pope, he designed a three-story stables, as well as fresco decorations for a suburban villa. He also designed his burial chapel at the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Conceived as a total work of art, the chapel is constructed from a variety of colored marbles and incorporates painting, sculpture, and mosaic. Raphael's passion for classical antiquity and to see Rome return to the architectural and artistic splendor of its past extended naturally enough to archeology. In 1515, he was given powers as prefect over all antiquities on earth within or a mile outside the city. Raphael intended to make an archeological reconstruction, a map of ancient Rome, though he did not live long enough to complete this ambitious project. A degree of mystery surrounds Raphael's sudden death on Good Friday, 6th April, 1520. One suggestion is that his promiscuity contributed to the fever that killed him. What we do know is that following his death, Raphael passed immediately into myth. Painter, architect, visionary, and genius. The Credit Suisse exhibition, Raphael at the National Gallery brings together many of his works to show his unique talent to capture his extraordinary mastery of different forms and remind us, 500 years after he died, that while his life was short, Raphael's legacy endures to this day.