Raphael
Raphael
Raphael the Florentine genius painter, sculptor and architect of the Renaissance time will make a person recall all the ideas and attitudes of that time once he spent a moment looking into his work. His painting was a mix of Christian and classical styles. His sculpture and architecture were Greek and Roman, rejecting the Gothic style. While he had a short life, his works reflect the Renaissance with all of its ideas. This great cultural movement, that began in Italy in the 1300s and spread to England, France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain to end around 1600. Raphael highlighted the beauty of the human body and dignity and majesty of the individuals during their daily life in his paintings and sculptures. A true artist of the Renaissance time in contrary to the medieval artists whom they painted human figures stiff and unrealistic to serve as symbols for religious purposes.
Raffaello Sanzio, was born on April 6, 1483, in Urbino, and passed away on April 6, 1520 in Rome at the age of 37 (Pioch). He is the son of Giovanni Santi, the author of a famous Chronicle in rime and the head of a successful studio working for the court of Urbino, and as a portraitist for the court of Mantua. Raphael received his first education in his father's studio (Ciqola). In 1494, he went to Perugia to study with Pietro Perugino the famous painter at that time (Edgerton, Jr. 144). The blooming of Florence, with the presence there of Michelangelo and Leonardo, convinced Raphael to go there to learn in 1504 (Ciqola). In 1508 Pope Julius II asked Raphael to work for him in Rome (Edgerton, Jr. 144).
In his early work like the "Marriage of the Virgin", in 1504, the influence of Pergino's sentimental style was clear but Raphael's own style can be seen in the dignified figures and the perspective. "The School of Athens" shows a gathering of leading Greek philosophers and Scientists. Raphael presented in this painting intellectual and symbolic complexity. He...
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