Raffaello is by common consent placed at the head of his art; not because he excelled all others in every department of painting, but because no other artist has ever possessed the various parts of the art united in so high a degree. Lazzarini even asserts, that he was guilty of errors, and that he is only the first, because he did not commit so many as others. He ought, however, to have allowed, that his defects would be excellences in any other artist, being nothing more in him than the neglect of that higher degree of perfection to which he was capable of attaining. The art, indeed, comprehends so many and such difficult parts, that no individual artist has been alike distinguished in all; even Apelles was said to yield to Amphion in disposition and harmony, to Asclepiadorus in proportion, and to Protogenes in application.
The style of design of Raffaello, as seen in those drawings, divested of colours, which now form the chief ornaments of cabinets, presents us, if we may use the term, with the pure transcript of his imagination, and we stand in amaze at the contours, grace, precision, diligence, and genius, which they exhibit. One of the most admired of his drawings I once saw in the gallery of the Duke of Modena, a most finished and superior specimen, uniting in style all the invention of the best painters of Greece, and the execution of the first artists of Italy. It has been made a question whether Raffaello did not yield to Michelangiolo in drawing; and Mengs himself confesses, that he did, as far as regards the anatomy of the muscles, and in strong expression, in which he considers Raffaello to have imitated Michelangiolo. But we need not say with Vasari, that in order to prove that he understood the naked figure as well as Michelangiolo, he appropriated to himself the designs of that great master. On the contrary, in the figures of the two youths in the Incendio di Borgo, criticised by Vasari, one of whom is in the act of leaping from a wall to escape the flames, and the other is fleeing with his father on his shoulders, he not only proved that he had a perfect knowledge of the action of the muscles and the anatomy requisite for a painter, but prescribed the occasion when this style might be used without impropriety, as in figures of a robust form engaged in violent action. He moreover commonly marked the principal parts in the naked figure, and indicated the others after the example of the better ancient masters, and where he wrought from his own ideas, his execution was most correct. On this subject Bellori may be consulted at page 223 of the work already quoted, and the annotations to vol. ii. of Mengs, (page 197,) made by the Cavaliere d'Azzara, minister of the king of Spain at Rome, an individual, who, in conferring honour on the artist, has by his own writing conferred honour on art itself.
In chasteness of design, Raffaello was by some placed on a level with the Greeks, though this praise we must consider as extravagant. Agostino Caracci commends him as a model of symmetry; and in that respect, more than in any other, he approached the ancients; except, observes Mengs, in the hands, which being rarely found perfect in the ancient statues, he had not an equal opportunity of studying, and did not therefore design them so elegantly as the other parts. He selected the beautiful from nature, and as Mariette observes, whose collection was rich in his designs, he copied it with all its imperfections, which he afterwards gradually corrected, as he proceeded with his work. Above all things, he aimed at perfecting the heads, and from a letter addressed to Castiglione on the Galatea of the Palazzo Chigi, or of the Farnesina, he discovers how intent he was to select the best models of nature, and to perfect them in his own mind.[[48]] His own Fornarina assisted him in this object. Her portrait, by Raffaello's own hand, was formerly in the Barberini palace, and it is repeated in many of his Madonnas, in the picture of S. Cecilia, in Bologna, and in many female heads. Critics have often expressed a wish that these heads had possessed a more dignified character, and in this respect he was, perhaps, excelled by Guido Reni, and however engaging his children may be, those of Titian are still more beautiful. His true empire was in the heads of his men, which are portraits selected with judgment, and depicted with a dignity proportioned to his subject. Vasari calls the air of these heads superhuman, and calls on us to admire the expression of age in the patriarchs, simplicity of life in the apostles, and constancy of faith in the martyrs; and in Christ in the Transfiguration, he says, there is a portion of the divine essence itself transferred to his countenance, and made visible to mortal eyes.
This effect is the result of that quality that is called expression, and which, in the drawing of Raffaello has attracted more admiration of late years than formerly. It is remarkable, that not only Zuccaro, who was indeed a superficial writer, but that Vasari, and Lomazzo himself, so much more profound than either of them, should not have conferred on him that praise which he afterwards received from Algarotti, Lazzarini, and Mengs. Lionardo was the first, as we shall see in the Milanese School, to lead the way to delicacy of expression; but that master, who painted so little, and with such labour, is not to be compared to Raffaello, who possessed the whole quality in its fullest extent. There is not a movement of the soul, there is not a character of passion known to the ancients, and capable of being expressed by art, that he has not caught, expressed, and varied, in a thousand different ways, and always within the bounds of propriety. We have no tradition of his having, like Da Vinci, frequented the public streets to seek for subjects for his pencil; and his numerous pictures prove that he could not have devoted so much time to this study, while his drawings clearly evince, that he had not equal occasion for such assistance. Nature, as I have before remarked, had endowed him with an imagination which transported his mind to the scene of the event, either fabulous or remote, in which he was engaged, and awoke in him the very same emotions which the subjects of such story must themselves have experienced; and this vivid conception assisted him until he had designed his subject with that distinctness which he had either observed in other countenances, or found in his own mind. This faculty, seldom found in poets, and still more rarely in painters, no one possessed in a more eminent degree than Raffaello. His figures are passions personified; and love, fear, hope, and desire, anger, placability, humility, or pride, assume their places by turns, as the subject changes; and while the spectator regards the countenances, the air, and the gestures of his figures, he forgets that they are the work of art, and is surprised to find his own feelings excited, and himself an actor in the scene before him. There is another delicacy of expression, and this is the gradation of the passions, by which every one perceives whether they are in their commencement or at their height, or in their decline. He had observed their shades of difference in the intercourse of life, and on every occasion he knew how to transfer the result of his observations to his canvas. Even his silence is eloquent, and every actor
"Il cor negli occhi, e nella fronte ha scritto:"
the smallest perceptible motion of the eyes, of the nostrils, of the mouth, and of the fingers, corresponds to the chief movements of every passion; the most animated and vivid actions discover the violence of the passion that excites them; and what is more, they vary in innumerable degrees, without ever departing from nature, and conform themselves to a diversity of character without ever risking propriety. His heroes possess the mien of valour; his vulgar, an air of debasement; and that, which neither the pen nor the tongue could describe, the genius and art of Raffaello would delineate with a few strokes of the pencil. Numbers have in vain sought to imitate him; his figures are governed by a sentiment of the mind, while those of others, if we except Poussin and a very few more, seem the imitation of tragic actors from the scenes. This is Raffaello's chief excellence; and he may justly be denominated the painter of mind. If in this faculty be included all that is difficult, philosophical, and sublime, who shall compete with him in the sovereignty of art?
Another quality which Raffaello possessed in an eminent degree was grace, a quality which may be said to confer an additional charm on beauty itself. Apelles, who was supremely endowed with it among the ancients, was so vain of the possession that he preferred it to every other attribute of art.[[49]] Raffaello rivalled him among the moderns, and thence obtained the name of the new Apelles. Something might, perhaps, be advantageously added to the forms of his children, and other delicate figures which he represented, but nothing can add to their gracefulness, for if it were attempted to be carried further it would degenerate into affectation, as we find in Parmegiano. His Madonnas enchant us, as Mengs observes, not because they possess the perfect lineaments of the Medicean Venus, or of the celebrated daughter of Niobe; but because the painter in their portraits and in their expressive smiles, has personified modesty, maternal love, purity of mind, and, in a word, grace itself. Nor did he impress this quality on the countenance alone, but distributed it throughout the figure in its attitude, gesture, and action, and in the folds of the drapery, with a dexterity which may be admired, but can never be rivalled. His freedom of execution was a component part of this grace, which indeed vanishes as soon as labour and study appear; for it is with the painter as with the orator, in whom a natural and spontaneous eloquence delights us, while we turn away with indifference from an artificial and studied harangue.
In regard to the province of colour, Raffaello must yield the palm to Titian and Correggio, although he himself excelled Michelangiolo and many others. His frescos may rank with the first works of other schools in that line: not so his pictures in oil. In the latter he availed himself of the sketches of Giulio, which were composed with a degree of hardness and timidity; and though finished by Raffaello, they have frequently lost the lustre of his last touch. This defect was not immediately apparent, and if Raffaello's life had been prolonged, he would have been aware of the injuries his pictures received from the lapse of time, and would not have finished them in so light a manner. He is on this account more admired in his first subject in the Vatican, painted under Julius II., than in those he executed under Leo X., for being there pressed by a multiplicity of business, and an idea of the importance of a grander style, he became less rich and firm in his colouring. That, however, he excelled in these respects is evinced by his portraits, when not having an opportunity of displaying his invention, composition, and beautiful style of design, he appears ambitious to distinguish himself by his colouring. In this respect his two portraits of Julius II. are truly admirable, the Medicean and the Corsinian: that of Leo X. between the two cardinals; and above all, in the opinion of an eminent judge, Renfesthein, that of Bindo Altoviti, in the possession of his noble descendants at Florence, by many regarded as a portrait of Raphael himself.[[50]] The heads in his Transfiguration are esteemed the most perfect he ever painted, and Mengs extols the colouring of them as eminently beautiful. If there be any exception, it is in the complexion of the principal female, of a greyish tint, as is often the case in his delicate figures; in which he is therefore considered to excel less than in the heads of his men. Mengs has made many exceptions to the chiaroscuro of Raffaello, as compared with that of Correggio, on which connoisseurs will form their own decision. We are told that he disposed it with the aid of models of wax; and the relief of his pictures, and the beautiful effect in his Heliodorus, and in the Transfiguration, are ascribed to this mode of practice. To his perspective, too, he was most attentive. De Piles found, in some of his sketches, the scale of proportion.[[51]] It is affirmed by Algarotti, that he did not attempt to paint di sotto in su. But to this opinion we may oppose the example we find in the third arch of the gallery of the Vatican, where there is a perspective of small columns, says Taja, imitated di sotto in su. It is true, that in his larger works he avoided it; and in order to preserve the appearance of nature, he represented his pictures as painted on a tapestry, attached by means of a running knot to the entablature of the room.
But all the great qualities which we have enumerated, would not have procured for Raffaello such an extraordinary celebrity, if he had not possessed a wonderful felicity in the invention and disposition of his subjects, and this circumstance is, indeed, his highest merit. It may with truth be said, that in aid of this object he availed himself of every example, ancient and modern; and that these two requisites have not since been so united in any other artist. He accomplishes in his pictures that which every orator ought to aim at in his speech—he instructs, moves, and delights us. This is an easy task to a narrator, since he can regularly unfold to us the whole progress of an event. The painter, on the contrary, has but the space of a moment to make himself understood, and his talent consists in describing not only what is passing, and what is likely to ensue, but that which has already occurred. It is here that the genius of Raffaello triumphs. He embraces the whole subject. From a thousand circumstances he selects those alone which can interest us; he arranges the actors in the most expressive manner; he invents the most novel modes of conveying much meaning by a few touches; and numberless minute circumstances, all uniting in one purpose, render the story not only intelligible, but palpable. Various writers have adduced in example the S. Paul at Lystra, which is to be seen in one of the tapestries of the Vatican. The artist has there represented the sacrifice prepared for him and S. Barnabas his companion, as to two gods, for having restored a lame man to the use of his limbs. The altar, the attendants, the victims, the musicians, and the axe, sufficiently indicate the intentions of the Lystrians. S. Paul, who is in the act of tearing his robe, shews that he rejects and abhors the sacrilegious honours, and is endeavouring to dissuade the populace from persisting in them. But all this were vain, if it had not indicated the miracle which had just happened, and which had given rise to the event. Raffaello added to the group the lame man restored to the use of his limbs, now easily recognized again by all the spectators. He stands before the apostles rejoicing in his restoration; and raises his hands in transport towards his benefactors, while at his feet lie the crutches which had recently supported him, now cast away as useless. This had been sufficient for any other artist; but Raffaello, who wished to carry reality to the utmost point, has added a throng of people, who, in their eager curiosity, remove the garment of the man, to behold his limbs restored to their former state. Raffaello abounds with examples like these, and he may be compared to some of the classical writers, who afford the more matter for reflection the more they are studied. It is sufficient to have noticed in the inventive powers of Raffaello, those circumstances which have been less frequently remarked; the movement of the passions, which is entirely the work of expression, the delight which proceeds from poetical conceptions, or from graceful episodes, may be said to speak for themselves, nor have any occasion to be pointed out by us.
Other things might contribute to the beauty of his works, as unity, sublimity, costume, and erudition; for which it is sufficient to refer to those delightful poetical pieces, with which he adorned the gallery of Leo X., and which were engraved by Lanfranco and Badalocchi, and are called the Bible of Raffaello. In the Return of Jacob, who does not immediately discover, in the number and variety of domestic animals, the multitude of servants, and the women carrying with them their children, a patriarchal family migrating from a long possessed abode into a new territory? In the Creation of the World, where the Deity stretches out his arms, and with one hand calls forth the sun and with the other the moon, do we not see a grandeur, which, with the simplest expression, awakes in us the most sublime ideas? And in the Adoration of the Golden Calf, how could he better have represented the idolatrous ceremony, and its departure from true religion, than by depicting the people as carried away by an insane joy, and mad with fanaticism? In point of erudition it is sufficient to notice the Triumph of David, which Taja describes and compares with the ancient bassirelievi, and is inclined to believe that there is not any thing in marble that excels the art and skill of this picture. I am aware that on another occasion he has not been exempted from blame, as when he repeated the figure of S. Peter out of prison, which hurts the unity of the subject; and in assigning to Apollo and to the muses instruments not proper to antiquity. Yet it is the glory of Raffaello to have introduced into his pictures numberless circumstances unknown to his predecessors, and to have left little to be added by his successors.