Original subtitles

Good morning. Before I begin to discuss Raphael and his Madonnas and portraits which I'd like

to share with you today, I would like to interject a comment on the Sistine ceiling that I was

loath to include in the last lecture because it interrupted the presentation of important

material. But you may wonder where I stand on the contentious matter of the restoration of the

Sistine ceiling. Do I think that the Sistine ceiling was the victim of a poor or careless

restoration or of overcleaning? No, I do not. Emphatically, I do not. The colors that we see

today, and you're looking at them now, are the colors that Michelangelo put there and that have

been concealed under layers of dirt and varnish and glue and candle smoke and chimney smoke and

overpainting and clumsy earlier restorations. These are the colors, they shock people when they first

see them after the cleaning, the colors that we should have expected to see. The Doni Madonna,

you remember the Doni Tondo with the Holy Family, with its sharp, startling colors, should have

prepared us for what we saw when the frescoes on the Sistine ceiling were cleaned. These are, in fact,

the colors of much later 16th of much of later 16th century Italian painting. We always knew that

Michelangelo invented the poses of the human body that were used by everyone for the rest of the

century. Now we know that he may have invented the color as well. Do I think that something was lost,

or anything was lost in the restoration? Yes, some things. Small, but not unimportant. For example,

old photographs show that the projecting foot of the prophet Jonah, foot swings out into space,

cast a shadow on the wall from his heel, from his foot. That shadow is gone, which means that

Michelangelo had probably painted it secco, dry, dry fresco on top of the, on top of the true fresco.

And when the layers of grime and so forth were removed, they went a little too far and took that

shadow as well. And there are certainly more such instances, but they remain a very small matter when

compared with the revelation that the restoration has permitted us to experience.

It's going to be argued about continuously. This is, never stops with restorations. There are always

arguments. But at least, should you care, you now know what I think about the Sistine ceiling restoration.

Let's turn to Raphael now. The youngest and the most short-lived of the three great central

Renaissance masters, the central Italian masters of the Renaissance, the High Renaissance, was Raphael,

who was born in 1483 in the hill town of Urbino, seat of the Dukes of Montefeltro, for whom Piero

della Francesca had worked, if you recall. Raphael's working life spanned scarcely 20 years. He died in

Rome in 1520. Yet, in that time, he created a body of art that seems the epitome of the Renaissance,

especially its brief culmination that we call the High Renaissance. By the way, speaking of names,

and we've done this with Leonardo and with Michelangelo, Raphael is always called Raphael in

English and spelled R-A-P-H-A-E-L. But he was born Raphael Sanzio, or Santi, either is correct, the son of

Giovanni Santi, a capable painter in Urbino who died when his son was 11. Soon, Raphael was sent to Perugia,

to apprentice to Pietro Perugino, an accomplished artist who had recently contributed four frescoes to

the 1481-82 cycle in the then-New Sistine Chapel, which we've referred to and which we have seen.

We've already had occasion to mention that project several times and seen two of the frescoes that are

there on the lower level. Perugino painted, among his works there, this commanding fresco and the

only one which survives. Two which were on the altar wall were destroyed, one on the entrance wall

destroyed. So we have only this one left, and it is a magnificent fresco that Perugino painted in

1482, Christ giving the keys to Saint Peter. It's a work that is notable for its command of the illusion

of deep space. Now the main figures, as they do throughout the series in the Sistine Chapel on

the lower level, stay resolutely in the foreground plane. They're a frieze of figures. That's true of

virtually all of the frescoes in the 1482 decoration. But the carefully plotted space of the piazza behind them

in the Perugino leads to a centrally planned temple-like building flanked by two triumphal arches here of

sorts on both sides. But although these objects, these triumphal arches, can be seen in Rome, until these paintings, you

hardly ever saw in Renaissance painting in Rome anything like this, certainly not this controlled space which he has created here.

The subject of Saint Peter receiving the keys from Christ is, of course, the passing of the authority of the Church to Peter,

the temporal authority. It makes Peter Petrus, the rock, the foundation of the Church. It makes Peter the first pope.

And that is the act which we see here, with apostles, eleven apostles flanking, together with portraits, obviously,

of local Romans, or perhaps some imported Florentines. In the center ground, we also have figures that are spread across.

Very carefully, we have a foreground group of figures, and then a center ground with figures, small figures,

some running and playing, and so forth, agitated across the center ground to help you mark the step into space,

along with the orthogonals of the perspective pavement grid.

Raphael adopted Perugino's style, and he participated in a large painting studio that was Perugino's,

one that was engaged on many projects, and so working with a master of such accomplishments and credentials gave Raphael

both technical skill and the ability to manage a large number of painters. He saw how it was done,

and also it gave him entree to important clients, especially, I think, in Rome, where Perugino had established a reputation.

Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin, known universally almost as the Sposalizio,

which is simply Italian for marriage, but so often associated with this painting,

that it is almost equivalent in art for the Marriage of the Virgin. In any event, the Sposalizio,

or the Marriage of the Virgin, painted in 1504, which is to say 22 years after Perugino's fresco,

nonetheless depends upon Perugino's fresco. This painting, which is an oil painting, is in the Brera.

Raphael based his own Marriage of the Virgin on Perugino's work, but if you look at it,

you realize that his art had already moved into a different stylistic sphere. He'd condensed and focused

and monumentalized Perugino's manner into the style that became his own. He cut off the wings, as it were.

You don't have two arches. Rather, you have only this central focus on the temple behind the foreground

group, and fewer figures in the mid-ground, but there nonetheless to help us mark off the space.

It is a succinct summary in the stylistic shift between the two artists. Because of this focus,

of this narrowing down of the field of the painting, on a smaller group of figures, even though they are

a frieze-like group in the figure, you have a more monumental composition. There is more of a pyramidal

sense from the lower left, for instance, moving up on the space to the top of the temple, and down again,

the other side. Now, one is in deep space and the other in the foreground, but it makes a marvelous,

a marvelous pyramidal unit on the surface of the painting. He does something else that's interesting,

by the way. He leaves his central door here open, so that the vanishing point is in space through the

temple, rather than sort of bumping up against the darkness of the temple door or interior.

Oh, and by the way, it's from this painting and his signature on this painting that we derive the name

that we use for him, because on the cornice, on the cornice is inscribed his Latinized signature,

which is Raphael Urbanem, Raphael of Urbino, and it's spelled R-A-P-H-A-E-L, so it's the Latinized version,

and we've borrowed that for the English form of his name and the English spelling of his name.

The subject of Raphael's painting we have not touched on yet, and I should. It's legendary. It

comes from apocryphal New Testament texts, not the official New Testament, the Marriage of the Virgin.

These texts were gathered together in various places, including in the Golden Legend, which we've

referred to a number of times, and it tells about the occasion. Joseph was chosen as Mary's husband,

from numerous other suitors, in a little, in a strange contest. They were all given,

given rods, wooden sticks, wooden rods, and Joseph's blossomed miraculously, burst into flower.

And this was witnessed, the suitors are all on the right-hand side as you look at this,

and on the left-hand side are the seven virgins who had been Mary's companions in the temple during

her childhood, and they witness this event. One of the unsuccessful suitors, a fellow with bad temper

here, bad loser, breaks his rod that didn't flower over his knee and divorces himself from the

proceedings, as it were. Joseph and Mary are joined in marriage by a priest, a high priest in the dominant

center, and it's understood that the beautiful circular building in the background is the temple

that Mary attended as a child. Raphael's Madonnas, to the art-knowledgeable person, when you say Raphael's

Madonnas, it conjures at least a generic image of the Madonna and child, serene and lovely, imperturbable,

noble. In later centuries, Raphael's Madonnas spawned countless imitations, honorable or meretricious,

but Raphael's images of the Madonna are in reality so varied and inventive that when you confront them,

you're continually surprised and continually impressed. They have been so often reproduced

that it requires a special attention to see their virtues and appreciate their variety. We'll look at

several contrasting examples, and the first is the so-called Madonna del Grand Duca, the Madonna of the

Grand Duke, painted about 154-155, just around the time of the Marriage of the Virgin. It is a somber,

half-length figure in a tall format, strikingly tall format. The traditional red tunic

and blue cloak of Mary are rendered in just almost indescribable variants of red and blue, very

memorable colors here of such purity, such harmony, that they sing. The painting is given all the resonance

needed from those colors. And by the way, and I have not mentioned it, the familiar colors of the

Virgin, red and blue, are symbolic attributes, in a sense, of the Virgin. The blue signifies that she

is Queen of Heaven, and the red signifies the sacrificial blood of Christ. The humility in this

painting of her downcast eyes, which is very striking in that oval face, and he emphasizes the eyelids,

the humility of her downcast eyes seems appropriate when we meet the gaze of the child,

at once softly human, and solemnly other, more than human. Virtually all images of the Christ child,

we've seen this before, predict the sacrifice in some way or other. And here, I think it's the black

background, which hints of the darkness over the whole land at the crucifixion.

The name by which the painting is known, the Madonna del Grand Duca, refers to the Grand Dukes

of Tuscany, by the way. They became rulers of Florence in the middle of the 16th century,

and this picture came into the Grand Ducal collection at the end of the 18th century.

A very famous example of the Madonnas is the Madonna of the Goldfinch, painted at probably about 155. It's

in Florence in the Uffizi. The Madonna of the Goldfinch consists of a group of full-length figures

in a landscape. The Madonna, who is seated perhaps on a rock, the child Jesus in front of her, and the

child John the Baptist to our left. The Goldfinch of the title, which Jesus is offering to John,

is a symbol of the human soul that flies away at death. The symbolism of flowers, and birds,

and so forth, I find very hard to remember. Everything is symbolic, and this is a medieval

habit of mind which continues right through the Renaissance. One always has to, I always have to,

check them and find out again each time what the symbolism is. But in this case, the bird,

the goldfinch was said to have received its red spot from a drop of blood from the thorn-crowned

head of Christ, when the crown of thorns is put on his head and blood is drawn, and the bird came

flying by, took a thorn, got a drop of blood on his head, and therefore the legend of his connection

with the Christ child. The group is placed in the foreground of a very lovely landscape,

and is composed like a pyramid again, and it's so natural, such an easy, when I say pyramid,

I'm speaking of a three-dimensional triangle, something that has a base, and that you can feel

the roundness and the depth of it, and the base of it, and you can very strongly feel it in this painting.

So naturally put together, and yet it's extremely sophisticated. It owes most as a design to Leonardo

da Vinci, and this kind of composition, pyramidal composition, is the sure mark of a high Renaissance

painting. Despite its popularity, the painting has had a disastrous history. In 1547, this painting was

shattered into 17 pieces in an earthquake. It was reassembled, and of course, it had to be much

repainted. This is worth contemplating, because when we visit museums and churches, we very seldom

stop to think about the damage that paintings have sustained over the centuries, and how much of the

original work has often been lost.

A tondo, or circular painting, or sculpture, is an ideal form closely associated with Renaissance art.

We've seen one painting, at least, that by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi of the Adoration of the Magi,

in a circular frame. The symbolic potential of this circular shape, of the tondo, is its seamless perfection,

or it can be seen as a reminder of the deity, of God, who is both center and circumference of the

universe, at the center of everything and surrounding everything. God is everywhere in that concept.

This is a concept, the tondo, the circular form, which is exploited by artists, but it is also exploited by

architects in their ground plans, and we saw it already in Pramante's circular plan for the new

St. Peter's. The Alba Madonna, which you are looking at, was painted about 1510. The Alba Madonna is named for

the Spanish family that owned it for generations. It's one of the most admired of all tondo compositions,

and of all Raphael Madonnas. This Madonna, seated upon the ground, is, together with the Christ child and

the child John the Baptist, built into a composition of subtle complexity. Her leg, the fore leg here,

her upper arm, and the alignment of the heads establish a rhomboid shape, a rhomboid that is set

into the circular field and then anchored in place, as it were, by the horizon line, and this very

beautiful modulated horizon line of the landscape behind. The soft blue haze of those distant hills

also creates an atmospheric perspective, the feeling of depth through the bluing of the hills,

and it convinces us of the depth of the space behind the Madonna, which takes some convincing because

there's no middle ground here, really. One goes from the very dominant foreground group to the hills

without much between, surely no perspective lines. So it relies on that sense of the atmosphere of

the distance to convince us that we have traversed it visually. Her turbaned head is very unusual.

Her turbaned head and her eyes, which are fixed on the reed cross, which the Baptist holds and which the

child Jesus also holds the upper part of, her head suggests that of a sybil,

just like those that Michelangelo was then painting in the Sistine Chapel, a sybil who foresees the

crucifixion. Moreover, the pose of the Christ child here reminds us of the resurrected Christ who holds a

banner, and that's not an accident. His half-standing pose here is meant to look forward to the end and,

in fact, to the resurrection. The Sistine Madonna, which was probably painted in 1513, is different from

all other Raphael Madonnas. It's majestic. The standing figure is the apex of a triangular group

of figures, including St. Barbara on the right, beautiful colors of gold and blue and green,

and St. Sixtus on the left, with a red-lined cloak. They're presented to us in a coup de

théâtre, an apparition revealed by curtains being drawn back. There's even a curtain rod,

you see at the top here, so that there's an illusionism, as though the curtain were real,

and is being drawn back to reveal this vision. That the cloud-filled space that they inhabit is meant

to be infinite, is indicated beautifully by the irresistible little angels down at the bottom,

who lean their arms on the lower edge of this opening, like children in a swimming bath, as an

English writer very nicely, nicely put it. They are charming, and it is Raphael's grace to keep the

charm just this side of saccharine. Many of his imitators didn't manage that. The painting, probably,

probably, was commissioned by Julius II for the church of St. Sixtus in Piacenza, the city of Piacenza,

and that city had reverted voluntarily to the papal states in 1512. And Julius II, who as a cardinal,

had supported the building of that church, celebrated the reclamation of the city.

St. Sixtus was a much revered early Christian pope and martyr, and the patron saint

of the della Rovere family. Julius' uncle, Francesco della Rovere, had taken the name as pope of Sixtus IV.

And the painting of St. Sixtus here, in the painting, he has the features of Julius II,

who liked to get his features in as many paintings as possible. The pope, Julius, died in 1513,

before this painting could be installed at Piacenza, so he never saw it in its place,

though he may have seen it completed. Raphael was also a great portrait artist,

though not a prolific one. His earliest portraits, painted in Florence, are strong likenesses,

though, for my taste at least, rather matter-of-fact, without too much penetration into character. But his

mature, superb Roman portraits, after 1510, are another matter. And here is his portrait of Julius II.

Finally, you are seeing him as himself, as it were. The painting of 1511, 1512, now in the National Gallery

in London. It's rich and memorable, rich in color. It resonates with the purplish crimson of his cap and

his cape against that deep green curtain behind him, and then the illumination, as it were, from the

brilliant white of his long robe. He wears a beard, which wouldn't surprise you unless you'd been looking

at portraits of earlier popes for a while, because there aren't any bearded popes in other pictures

before Julius. This was unprecedented, and it came from his fury at the French invasion, and his

vow to grow a beard and keep it until the French were expelled. He borrowed that from Julius Caesar,

by the way, who had also grown a beard before he got the Gauls driven out, so he knew where he was

getting the idea. He didn't wait as long. He, Julius, didn't wait until the French were gone. He wore this beard from

June of 1511 until March of 1512, but it was an astonishing phenomenon that was remarked upon by

everyone. The careworn face, it's a magnificently painted face, the careworn face with the unprecedented

papal beard and the unquiet hands. Look at them, particularly his proper left hand as it grasps in an

odd and unconscious way. He's not posed. It doesn't feel posed. They convey a great deal of the force of

this old warrior pope. I haven't said much about his politics and his military valor, but he was a

man who led his troops to their astonishment. He also took the cardinals with him, to their great

astonishment, on campaigns. This particular composition, the seated three-quarter length

figure in three-quarter profile that we take for granted, was in fact an innovation and a very

influential one. Raphael used it to suggest that the viewer, you and I, are having an audience with the

pope. And according to Vasari, this painting was so much like the very feared Julius that, quote,

everyone who saw it trembled as if the pope were standing there in person. His portrait of Baldessari

Castiglione is an indisputable, indeed an incomparable masterpiece. It is the embodiment

of the ideal of humanism, a person whose intellect and emotions are in perfect harmony and under the control

of wisdom. It is so beautiful to look at in its palette, in its composition. It is a flawless

consonance. It is an astonishing painting. Looking at his eyes, look at the wonderful blue-green of his

eyes against the flesh tones and against the grayish background. The color scheme of the whole thing

is a flawless consonance of gray, black flesh tones, of perfectly defined volumes, persuasive description,

expression. And in every sense, it's the true likeness of the man. It is what we call a speaking likeness,

a man who was Raphael's good friend, by the way. Look at the volumes of those sleeves, the volumetric

quality of it. They're tactile. You can feel it. You feel you could reach out and touch those marvelous,

gray, billowing sleeves. The folded hands are folded in utter composure, a man of complete self-control.

The contour follow up the black contour to the collar, and then that joins or leads us to the contour,

the wonderful contour of the hat with this little triangular cut into it. And a very irregular, very

animated, not too animated, but very full of interest contour that surrounds the head and leads us back

to the mouth framing the face so beautifully. You should know, if you do not already, this portrait

had a great influence on a famous 17th century artist because this portrait was sold in Amsterdam in

the 17th century. And Rembrandt was at the sale, and he made a sketch of the painting. And together with a sketch

he made of a portrait by Titian in the same sale, he put the two influences together. They inspired one of

the greatest of his own self-portraits, a wonderful moment art historically. The man who wrote, the man whom we see

here, wrote after this was painted, became the author of a book called The Courtier, a very famous book published in the 1520s.

The manuscript was circulated even before the book was published. And it was set, it was about the court at Urbino,

and a kind of imaginative recreation of the wonderfully intellectual and charming conversations and dinners

that were held there. I wanted to share one passage with you. I think I have time to do so, and it is

it is something that might surprise you. This is just a sample of the kinds of things that Castiglioni sets

down as having been discussed by the various guests in Urbino. And since we tend to think of the Renaissance,

at least I do, and you may too, as a patriarchal society, we always speak of Renaissance man,

and male popes and so forth patriarchs, this might surprise you a bit. One of the guests says,

if you compare the merits of women with those of men in any age whatsoever, you will find that they

have never been, nor are they now, the slightest bit inferior. For leaving aside all of those of

centuries ago, if you come to the time when the Goths ruled in Italy, you'll discover for a long time

that they had a queen. Well, he goes on with that. And then he says, how many famous women

do you find in history belonging to this noble house of Montefeltro, where he is? And then he says,

but it's not polite to talk about the people you know. So he goes on and says, to go outside of Italy,

remember that in our own time, we have seen Queen Anne of France, a very great lady, no less as regards

virtue than rank, and one whom, if you wish to compare her with King Charles and King Louis,

to both of whom she was married, you will find not the slightest bit inferior. Then, he says,

consider Madonna Margarita, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, who till now has governed and still

governs her state with the greatest prudence and justice. But leaving aside all others, tell me,

Signor, what king or prince has there been in our own time or even for many years past in the whole of

Christendom, to compare with Queen Isabella of Spain, to which the Signor replies, King Ferdinand,

her husband. And he says, well, I won't deny that. It's a wonderful and unexpected passage that seems

startlingly modern. I want to show you, in contrast to this great portrait of Castiglione,

the portrait of Bindo Alteviti, painted about 1515. It's in the National Gallery in Washington.

During this second decade of the 16th century, change was in the air. It was political,

theological change, and for the artists of the High Renaissance, stylistic change. Even a single

portrait, I maintain, may be a harbinger of such change. And that of Bindo Alteviti

is a prime example. The buoyant self-confidence in the wholeness of man and society, exemplified in

the portrait of Castiglione, was giving way to a profound unease. The foundations of society were

beginning to be shaken, and the next dozen years would bring catastrophic change to Rome itself.

This portrait, asymmetrical, uncertain in pose, dropped half into ominous shadow,

is in such total contrast to that of Castiglione, that the attribution of this portrait to Raphael

has sometimes been doubted. It is accepted today, but it's easy to understand such doubts. For the

psychological and stylistic shift is unsettling. We shall see the same shift in Raphael's famous

frescoes in the Vatican in the next lecture. Thank you for your attention.