Famous European Artists

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

"Just as Paul, descended from the skies, was unable to reveal the secrets of God," so Raphael is unable to reveal the thoughts of his beating heart. He thanks and praises love, and yet the pain of separation is intense. He feels like "mariners who have lost their star."

To this love he was probably constant through life, the short twelve years which remained. When he painted the Farnesina, the palace of the rich banker, Agostino Chigi, years afterward, Vasari says, "Raphael was so much occupied with the love which he bore to the lady of his choice, that he could not give sufficient attention to the work. Agostino, therefore, falling at length into despair of seeing it finished, made so many efforts by means of friends and by his own care that after much difficulty he at length prevailed on the lady to take up her abode in his house, where she was accordingly installed, in apartments near those which Raphael was painting; in this manner the work was ultimately brought to a conclusion."

He painted her portrait, now in the Barberini Palace, it is believed, in 1509. It represents a girl "only half-clothed, seated in a myrtle and laurel wood. A striped yellow stuff surrounds her head as a turban, and imparts something distinguished and charming to her features," says Passavant. " ... With her right hand she holds a light gauze against her breast. Her right arm, encircled with a golden bracelet, rests on her knees, which are covered by red drapery. On the bracelet Raphael has inscribed his name with the greatest care."

The face did not seem to me beautiful when I saw it in Rome a few years ago, but certainly does not lack expression, making one feel that the mind which Raphael discovered "to be as beautiful as the body" was equally potent with the warmhearted artist.

Grimm says, "The portrait of the young girl or woman in the Barberini Palace is a wonderful painting. I call it so because it bears about it in a high degree the character of mysterious unfathomableness. We like to contemplate it again and again.... Her hair is brilliantly black, parted over the brow, and smoothly drawn over the temples, behind the ear; the head is encircled with a gay handkerchief, like a turban, the knots of which lie on one side above the ear, pressing it a little with their weight.

"She is slightly bent forward. She sits there with her delicate shoulder a little turned to the left; she seems looking stealthily at her lover, to watch him as he paints, and yet not to stir from her position, because he has forbidden it. It seems to him, however, to be a source of the most intense pleasure to copy her accurately, and in no small matter to represent her otherwise than as he saw her before him. We fancy her to feel the jealousy, the vehemence, the joy, the unalterable good-humor, and the pride springing from the happiness of being loved by him. He, however, painted it all because he was capable of these feelings himself in their greatest depth. If his pictures do not betray this, his poems do."

Muntz says, "From a technical point of view, the work is a masterpiece. Never, perhaps, has Raphael given such delicacy and subtlety to his carnations; never did he create a fuller life; we can see the blood circulate; we can feel the beating pulse. Thus the picture is a continual source of envy and despair to modern realists."

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their life of Raphael, speak of the "warm tone of flesh burnished to a nicety and shaded with exceptional force," in this picture. "The coal-black eyes have a fascinating look of intentness, which is all the more effective as they are absolutely open, under brows of the purest curves.... The forehead has a grand arch, the cheeks are broad, the chin rounded and small. The contours are all circular. The flesh has a fulness which characterizes alike the neck, the drooping shoulders, and the arms and extremities."

Passavant thus speaks of a portrait in Florence, which belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "This portrait in the Pitti Palace bears a strong resemblance to the Madonna di San Sisto (Dresden Museum), with this difference, however, that the features of the Virgin are ennobled. The woman in the portrait is a handsome Roman, but of quite individual character. Her form is powerful, her costume sumptuous, her beautiful black eyes flash, her mouth is refined and full of grace.