Raphael (Urbino: 1483-1520).

The genius of Raphael Santi (or Raffaello Sanzio, as the modern Italians write his name) is an example of the force alike of hereditary transmission of gifts and of surrounding circumstances. He was the second son (born April 6) of Giovanni Santi (see 751), a painter and poet of Urbino. The son inherited the father's aptitude for painting; but as Giovanni died when Raphael was only eleven, the boy's actual teacher was Timoteo Viti, of whom there is a portrait in chalks by Raphael in the British Museum. The young Raphael's hereditary gifts were nurtured by the artistic atmosphere in which he lived. Urbino, the Athens of Umbria, was at this time one of the chief centres of artistic and intellectual life in Italy; the ducal palace contained a fine collection of pictures both by Italian and Flemish painters. Amongst the latter were some by Van Eyck, and it is perhaps to this influence that we may attribute the miniature-like care of Raphael's earliest work, which is conspicuous in the "Vision of a Knight," and may be seen again in the jewel painting here. An intense power of assimilation—of learning all things from all men—characterised Raphael throughout his life, and is one of the main causes of the width of range and catholicity of taste to which he owes his universal popularity. Thus when he went (probably not before 1500) to study under Perugino, he so quickly assimilated the style of that master that he has been credited with some of the design and even of the work in Perugino's masterpiece, just as some of his pictures were, says Vasari, mistaken for Perugino's. In 1504 he went to Florence, which was his headquarters for the next four years. He at once took a leading part in the artistic fraternity there, and put one great artist after another under contribution for some special power of drawing, beauty of colour, or grace of composition. Thus from Signorelli and Michelangelo he learnt to study the human form; it was at Florence, says Vasari, that Raphael began to study the nude and to make anatomical drawings from dissected corpses. From Leonardo da Vinci (sketches from whom by Raphael may be seen at Oxford) he learnt soft beauty of expression, and it is to this master's influence perhaps that the smile of his Madonnas may be traced. In 1508 Raphael was invited by the Pope Julius II. to Rome, and there he spent the greater part of his life—painting, besides innumerable altar-pieces and cabinet pictures, his famous cartoons and frescoes. And yet he was only thirty-seven when he died. His time was partly occupied too with portraiture, in which he excelled. In 1514 he accepted the responsible office of architect of St. Peter's, left vacant by the death of his friend Bramante. A year later he was installed as director of the excavations then in progress among the ruins of ancient Rome, and flung himself into the work with devoted ardour. In the heavy and multifarious work thus crowded upon him, Raphael employed many assistants, among whom were Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine, and Perino del Vaga, and in some of the pictures of his Roman period the master's own hand executed little more than the finishing touches. All that we know of Raphael's private life and character reflects that innate love of beauty which fused all he borrowed into something of his own. "All were surpassed by him," says Vasari, "in friendly courtesy as well as in art; all confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious disposition, which was so replete with excellence and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honoured by men but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps and always loved him." In morals he was pure, and might indeed be called almost immaculate, judged by the lax standard of his age. The Cardinal Bibiena designed his niece for Raphael, but—

Rafael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view—but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.

He lived a painter among princes—"a model," says Vasari, "of how we should comport ourselves towards great men," but also a prince among painters—jealous of none, kindly to all. "Whenever any other painter, whether known to him or not, requested any assistance, he would invariably leave his work to do him service; and his school—consisting of some fifty painters, all men of ability and distinction—continued in such unity and concord that all harsh feelings and evil dispositions became subdued and disappeared at the sight of him." And so when he died—having impaired his constitution by a life of ceaseless toil—Rome went into a paroxysm of grief, and flocked, as he lay in state, to catch a last sight of the "divine painter." He died on his birthday, April 6, and was buried in the Pantheon with great solemnities.

With regard to Raphael's position in the history of art, it is important to distinguish between his different "periods," which correspond, as will be seen, with the divisions of his life. The National Gallery is fortunate in having specimens of all the periods, and the importance of the pictures from this point of view is noted under the several numbers, but it may be convenient to summarise the matter briefly here. (1) First, or Perugian period, down to 1504—which again may perhaps be subdivided as explained under 213. During this period his works closely resemble Perugino's—the most typical of them are the "Sposalizio," at Milan, copied from Perugino's painting of the same subject, now at Caen; and the "Crucifixion," in Mr. L. Mond's Collection, of which Vasari says: "If it were not for the name of Raphael written upon it, it would be supposed by every one to be a work of Pietro Perugino." (2) Second, or Florentine period: 1504-1508. To this period belong the "Madonna del Granduca" at Florence, "La Belle Jardinière" at the Louvre, and in this country the Madonna at Lord Cowper's (Panshanger), the Bridgewater Madonna (929), the St. Catherine (168), and this "Ansidei Madonna." The importance of this picture in the history of art is that it shows the transition from the first to the second period, being dated (on the border of the Virgin's robe below her left arm) MDVI, 1506. A glance at the Perugino No. 288 will show how much of that master's influence remains. "To his earlier Perugian manner we ascribe," says Waagen (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, iii. 128), "the head of the Virgin, which, however, is the most beautiful and noble development of this whole style, the rather too round body of the otherwise very lovely child, the expression of ardent yearning in St. John, as well as the position of his feet, resembling that of St. Joseph in the 'Sposalizio,' the cast of the draperies of the Virgin and St. Nicholas, the use of several colours which have turned very dark, such as the blue in the robe of the Virgin, the green in the canopy, in the upper garment of St. Nicholas, and in the landscape, and the use of gold in the hems, in the glories, in the two Greek borders, and in the inscription SALVE MATER CHRISTI on the wooden throne." Another point of special value in this picture is that, like the Sistine Madonna, it is entirely by Raphael's own hand, no pupil or assistant having touched it. (3) Third, or Roman period, 1508-1520. The chief works of this period are the frescoes in the Vatican. But in this country there are the famous cartoons (at South Kensington), and in the National Gallery the portrait of Julius II. (27), and the Garvagh Madonna (744). The characteristics of this period are, besides the perfection of executive power, the substitution of classical for religious motive, and the straining after dramatic effect.

From the technical point of view, this division into three (or four) periods is instructive, but from the point of view of motive a better division is that between his earlier and his later work, the turning-point being his arrival in Rome. "In his twenty-fifth year," says Ruskin (Edinburgh Lectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 213), "one half-year only past the precise centre of his available life, he was sent for to Rome, to decorate the Vatican for Pope Julius II., and having until that time worked exclusively in the ancient and stern mediæval manner, he, in the first chamber which he decorated in that palace, wrote upon its walls the Mene, Tekel, Upharsin of the arts of Christianity. And he wrote it thus: On one wall of that chamber he placed a picture of the World or Kingdom of Theology, presided over by Christ. And on the side wall of that same chamber he placed the World or Kingdom of Poetry, presided over by Apollo. And from that spot, and from that hour, the intellect and the art of Italy date their degradation.... And it was brought about in great part by the very excellences of the man who had thus marked the commencement of decline. The perfection of execution and the beauty of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his greatest contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty of form the chief objects of all artists; and thenceforward execution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rather than veracity.... The mediæval principles led up to Raphael, and the modern principles lead down from him." The position of Raphael in the history of art is thus closely parallel to that of his great contemporary Michael Angelo (see 790). In Michael Angelo the art of Florence reached its culmination and fell rapidly to Giulio Romano and Venusti. In Raphael the art of Umbria was perfected and led down to the conventional sentimentalities against which the "Pre-Raphaelites" have in modern times revolted.

The "Ansidei Madonna," so called from having been painted for the Ansidei family at Perugia,[230] was bought from the Duke of Marlborough by the nation for £70,000—more than three times the highest price ever before paid for a picture, and equal to more than £14 per square inch. The importance of the picture to the student has been partly described above; but to this must be added its unusual size and excellent state of preservation, and the fact that whilst on the one hand the National Gallery had before no chef d'œuvre of Raphael, the number of such works not already placed in foreign galleries was very small.[231] On its own merits the "Ansidei Madonna" is by common consent one of the most perfect pictures in the world. It has all the essentials of the greatest art. First it is "wrought in entirely consistent and permanent materials. The gold is represented by painting, not laid on with real gold, and the painting is so secure that nearly four hundred years have produced in it no harmful change." "The exquisite purity of the colour and the silvery and luminous quality of its tones"[232] are as remarkable to-day as they must have been when the panel left the painter's easel. Secondly, "the figures are in perfect peace. Those are the two first attributes of the best art. Faultless workmanship and perfect serenity; a continuous, not momentary, action, or entire inaction; you are to be interested, in the living creatures, not in what is happening to them. Then the third attribute of the best art is that it compels you to think of the spirit of the creature, and therefore of its face, more than of its body. And the fourth is that in the face you shall be led to see only beauty or joy—never vileness, vice, or pain" (Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, pp. 14, 15). In fulfilling these essentials of the highest art, the picture becomes also one of the noblest embodiments of Christianity. Raphael is above all the painter of motherhood and childhood—of the self-forgetting love of the one, and the fearless faith of the other—the human relationship which of all others is the most divine. On either side are two saints—types both of them of the peace of Christianity. In the figure of St. John the Baptist on the left—with his rough camel skin upon him, and an expression of ecstatic contemplation on his face—the joy that comes from a life of self-sacrifice is made manifest; in that of the good Bishop Nicholas of Bari, the peace that comes from knowledge. The three balls at his feet are a favourite emblem of the saint; typical partly of the mystery of the Trinity, but referring also to the three purses of gold which he is said to have thrown into a poor man's window that his daughters might not be portionless. Further we may notice how the same impression of infinite peace is conveyed by the landscape, and especially by the open sky visible on either side of the throne. This open sky "is of all visible things the least material, the least finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house, the most typical of the nature of God, the most suggestive of the glory of His dwelling-place. For the sky of night, though we may know it boundless, is dark; it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit: we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. v. § 5).[233]

It has been said above that the Ansidei Madonna is "by common consent one of the most perfect pictures in the world." Criticisms which have been published since its acquisition by the National Gallery require that statement to be modified. Thus, Mr. G. A. Storey, R.A., in the course of a public lecture, has remarked that "as compared with Raphael's other works, the Ansidei Madonna lacked the touch of nature, the play and harmony that were characteristic of the master. All the heads were looking in the same direction, and the figure of the Virgin was scarcely graceful. Nor was there the unity necessary to a complete composition, for each figure seemed unconnected with the rest, and, indeed, they seemed to be almost unconscious of each other's existence." Mr. Ford Madox Brown (Magazine of Art, Feb. 1890) is more severe still. "The Bishop saint of Bari," he says, "is certainly a fine figure, worthy of the master it is attributed to. The Virgin and Child, however, are for sentiment just like two wax doll lay figures, making it hard to conceive how the same mighty hand can have produced anything so tame; while the figure of the Baptist, with ill-drawn legs, is positively repulsive both for pose and for expression of countenance. Surely Raphael could have had no hand in it." Mr. Pater, on the other hand, commends the Ansidei Madonna to students of Raphael as more worthy of admiration than any other work of the master: "I find there, at first sight, with something of the pleasure one has in a proposition of Euclid, a sense of the power of the understanding, in the economy with which he has reduced his material to the simplest terms. He is painting in Florence, but for Perugia, and sends it a specimen of its own old art—Mary and the babe enthroned, with St. Nicholas and the Baptist in attendance on either side. The kind of thing people there had already seen so many times, but done better, in a sense not to be measured by degrees, with a wholly original freedom and life and grace, though he perhaps is unaware, done better as a whole, because better in every minute particular, than ever before. The scrupulous scholar, aged twenty-three, is now indeed a master, but still goes carefully. Note, therefore, how much mere exclusion counts for in the positive effect of his work. There is a saying that the true artist is known best by what he omits. Yes, because the whole question of good taste is involved precisely in such jealous omission. Note this, for instance, in the familiar Apennine background, with its blue hills and brown towns, faultless, for once—for once only—and observe, in the Umbrian pictures around, how often such background is marred by grotesque natural, or architectural detail, by incongruous or childish incident. In this cool, pearl-gray, quiet place, where colour tells for double,—the jewelled cope, the painted book in the hand of Mary, the chaplet of red coral,—one is reminded that among all classical writers Raphael's preference was for the faultless Virgil. How orderly, how divinely clean and sweet the flesh, the vesture, the floor, the earth and sky! Ah, say rather the hand, the method of the painter! There is an unmistakable pledge of strength, of movement and animation in the cast of the Baptist's countenance, but reserved, repressed. Strange, Raphael has given him a staff of transparent crystal. Keep, then, to that picture as the embodied formula of Raphael's genius. Amid all he has here already achieved, full, we may think, of the quiet assurance of what is to come, his attitude is still that of the scholar; he seems still to be saying, before all things, from first to last, 'I am utterly purposed that I will not offend'" (Miscellaneous Studies, p. 53).

1172. CHARLES THE FIRST.

Van Dyck (Flemish: 1599-1641). See 49.

This famous picture was one of many equestrian portraits of Charles I. which Van Dyck painted at his court. It is, however, unique among them. In all the others,—the Windsor picture, the replica at Hampton Court, and the pictures in the Earl of Warwick's and the Marquis of Lothian's Collections, the king faces the spectator, and rides, as it were, straight out of the picture, the horse being white. The size, proportions, and composition of this picture are different. The horse is dun-coloured, and the king is seen in profile. A small picture at Buckingham Palace was probably the original design or sketch of it. It was sold after Charles's death for £150 by the Parliament, and in 1885 was bought by another Parliament—from the Duke of Marlborough—for the great price of £17,500 (see under 1171).

It is a courtier's portrait of the idol of the cavaliers—a portrait of the good side of a bad king. Notice first the prominence given to the noble horse (cf. under 156), almost to the point of clumsiness. Then in Charles himself, note the stately bearing, the personal dignity, the almost feminine refinement. It is a portrait of personal courage—with no suspicion of any fatal want of presence of mind; of dignity—with the obstinacy, which was its reverse side, left out. In such a portrait "of a Cavalier by a Cavalier" Van Dyck's work is invested with an enduring pathos for all Englishmen. One remembers only, in looking upon this picture of him, Charles's graces, not his faults. One thinks of him as the man who "nothing common did, nor mean, upon that memorable scene." And so considered, how eloquent becomes the isolation in which the painter has here left him. With him, indeed, is Sir Thomas Morton, his equerry, but the king does not see him. Bareheaded he sits, gazing into futurity.

1173. AN UNKNOWN SUBJECT.

School of Giorgione (Venetian: 16th Century). See 269.