Original subtitles

For centuries, Raphael's painting was held to be the most complete expression of the

values of the Italian Renaissance. While his older contemporaries sought to reproduce

nature, Raphael sought nurture and an idealised vision of the world. He was a sensualist

whose work was graceful and harmonious and which for many in his world came closest to

visual perfection.

Raphael Ossanti was born in 1483 in Urbino in central Italy. Though a small provincial

town, Urbino had a sound artistic pedigree. Raphael's father was himself a respected artist

and poet, with close ties to the intellectual circles of the prestigious Urbino court. This

is a drawing widely believed to be by Raphael, a self-portrait when barely an adolescent.

His precocious talents were no doubt stimulated by his father's profession, as well as the

vitality of his courtly surroundings.

But Raphael's privileged childhood came to an end very rapidly, when within the space of

three years, both his parents died, and by the age of 11, he was an orphan. A year later,

in 1495, he came here, to Perugia, then a bustling, vibrant centre, and Raphael had one

aim, to establish himself as a painter. Now, we don't know that much about the early time

in Perugia, but what we do know, is that he soon became apprentice in the workshop of

one Pietro Perugino, the leading painter in the area, known for his pious, gentle, popular

religious paintings. By all accounts, Raphael was a quick learner, and by the age of 17,

he was already referred to as a master, on the contract for a big commission. Raphael's

master of the art of painting, when he was barely out of his teens, is brilliantly exemplified in

this picture. Now, there were plenty of young men, of 17 or 18, who'd been deemed to have

mastered their craft, but this kind of talent stood out supreme, and it was immediately

acknowledged. Raphael was commissioned by a group of nuns, in the convent of San Antonio

in Perugia, to do an altarpiece, and this was the result. What we see are the Virgin Mary, and the infant

Jesus, surrounded by saints. We see the two great male pillars of Christianity, aside from Christ himself,

Saint Peter on the left, Saint Paul on the right. We then see two of the early Christian martyrs, Saint Catherine

from Alexandria, she was martyred in the 4th century AD, and then to the right of the Virgin Mary, Saint

Cecilia, a Roman martyr from the 2nd or 3rd century. But everything is central in this composition.

Everything focuses in on the Virgin Mary herself, clutching the infant Jesus, with Saint John the Baptist

there. And there's a triangle of ascension, if you like, from John the Baptist, to Jesus himself, to the

Virgin Mary, who is enthroned supreme in this image. And the halo on the Virgin Mary's head is amplified,

if you like, by this canopy above her, and the whole emphasis is on upwards, on ascension. The way it's painted is

colourful, strong, confident. You can see a mixture of tempera on this wooden surface, but also all the saints

have inlaid gold halos that amplify their own status. But there's something else happening in this picture.

And really, you can see with the contrast of the upper portion and the lower. In the upper portion, that's the style

Raphael has learnt from his teacher Perugino. But down here, in this decisiveness and in this confidence, there's a new style afoot.

Despite his already precocious success in Perugia, Raphael harboured greater ambitions, and recognised the need to

improve his technique still further. And where better to turn than the city at the forefront of the Renaissance, Florence.

Towards the end of 1504, at the age of 21, Raphael arrived here with a letter of introduction from the

court of Urbino to Florence's chief magistrate. Walking into the Piazza della Signoria, he saw

Michelangelo's recently erected colossal statue of David. Florence's artistic culture was dominated by

the towering figures of Michelangelo and Leonardo. They just unveiled their latest creations, which were

causing little short of a sensation in the city. These were full-scale drawings for murals destined to be

frescoed onto the walls of Florence's seat of government. Raphael learnt numerous lessons from these older masters.

In this painting, from 1507, we can see how he perfected the sfumato technique pioneered by Leonardo.

This involved the use of extremely fine, soft shading to outline forms and features, thereby adding

greater realism and fluidity to an image. From Michelangelo, Raphael absorbed the expressive

possibilities of the human anatomy in art, shown most vividly in this large painting, The Entombment of Christ.

Instead of producing a traditionally static image of grief, Raphael accentuates the drama of the scene by

putting all the figures into motion. Raphael soon had more social opportunities than either of his

older mentors. His courtly upbringing and his easy charm gave him access to the elite cultural circles

of Florence, and he was quickly accepted. As a painter, however, he was still largely untested. He had to content

himself with small-scale commissions, mostly of devotional works. The development of Raphael's

artistic style proceeded through his exploration of one subject above all others, the Madonna and Child.

Now, it's hard to believe that this subject, which is so central to Western art, at the beginning of the

church's history for the first six centuries, was virtually non-existent. But then, and particularly in the

Byzantine period, it moved centre stage in Western art, although invariably she was enthroned on high

triumphantly, and a rather remote figure. From the 14th century onwards, though, the relationship became

much more intimate, and it's that in particular that Raphael picks up. Here we see Christ, looking

slightly gurgling, with his hand tucked into his mother's dress. Her hand comes up to meet his arm.

They're very connected. And then Raphael takes the thing slightly wider. There, she's close-cropped

and rather intimate. Here, no less intimate, but a landscape. Classical and idealised, is there in the

background, with a classical building in shot. And then, triumphantly, I think we'd say, in this picture,

circular frame, called the Tondi, we see the Madonna and Christ next to John the Baptist. The

landscape's been broadened. It's even more beautiful. Rather beautifully geometrically positioned as well. You can

cut it in half along the riverway there. And the circle is the outside, but you also get this triangle,

or pediment again. And also, there's a sense of a rectangle there. It's a geometric miracle going on here.

Instead of being enthroned, as she has been in Byzantine art, here, she's absolutely at one with nature.

Instead of sitting on any kind of chair, she's slumped against an old tree root.

A child sits in a lap, and John the Baptist, clad in his customary fur, is on the end.

There's a nice relationship between the three figures, not least in the fact that John the Baptist

is giving to Christ this stick. But of course, it's more than a stick. It's a symbol of the cross,

on which Christ will eventually be crucified. And so the image looks forward.

But there's a nice comparison between this painting, and the Madonna and Child there, that was painted five years before.

That palette is bold, it's striking, and it's very much the palette of a Florentine artist.

Here, though, his palette and his approach is softened. It's more subtle, and some would say it's more beautiful.

Not just the contours, but the way everything is muted. And it's the idea that piety or devotion can be approached through the idea of beauty.

But it's also the palette and approach of artists working in Rome.

And when you notice that in fact, and this is very rare for the Madonna, that she's clad in a turban, long flowing robes and sandals,

and that this is a rather sentimentalised idea in the 16th century of what Romans would look like,

you realise that Raphael's attentions have moved away from Florence, and he's taking on board a different way of approaching painting.

During his four years in Florence, Raphael painted 15 versions of the Madonna and Child.

However, he knew that his prospects for grander work lay further south.

In 158, Raphael left Florence for Rome, rewrote by the promise of work from the wealthy papacy of Julius II.

Julius was trying to transform Rome into the new Florence, the Renaissance city.

And he did this by a lavish series of decorative and architectural projects all over the city,

but centred just over the Tiber here, in the Vatican itself.

As Rome was dug up to make way for the great building projects of Pope Julius II,

ever-increasing numbers of Roman sculptures were being discovered amongst the rubble.

They were a source of inspiration to almost all the Renaissance artists.

One of the most astonishing discoveries made 25 years earlier, but now only fully being seen,

was a vast underground network of rooms, baths and hallways,

the ruins of a gigantic luxury palace belonging to the infamous Roman emperor Nero.

Like many fellow artists, Raphael made his perilous way down into the ruins with a candle,

little knowing what to expect.

What he found were intricate and supremely well-drawn paintings, covering every wall and ceiling.

Behind astonishing sculptures lurking in the darkness were some very sensual scenes.

It was a total revelation to Raphael,

and would inspire him when he came to devise his own decorative schemes.

Raphael was quickly able to find work decorating a suite of rooms in the Vatican with a group of other artists,

but catching the eye of Julius II enough to make sure he was made a salaried papal painter.

While Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,

in the same building the 26-year-old Raphael landed the job of decorating the Stanza della Signatura,

a library where the Pope signed and sealed documents.

In scale and scope, the project pushed all Raphael's skills to the limit.

The idea for the decoration was to illustrate four of the standard classifications of the Renaissance library,

theology, poetry, philosophy and lore.

The most admired of Raphael's creations was this fresco, called the School of Athens,

which in many ways encapsulates the aspirations of the Renaissance,

man's rational quest for truth.

It's a stunning composition, carefully constructed,

where at the centre, just where the perspective converges,

are Plato and Aristotle, the grand old men of Greek philosophy,

arguing about the nature of truth.

Raphael cleverly sums up their complex thoughts with simple gestures,

Plato pointing upwards to the idealised world,

and Aristotle pointing downwards to the world that he inhabits.

Our interest is kept alive with lots of playful touches.

In one corner, the mathematician Pythagoras writes down his theories,

while simultaneously, they're being stolen by the people just behind him.

But it's not just thinkers that Raphael extols in his mural.

Artists are also put in prominent roles.

Plato is given the features of Leonardo.

The brooding figure sitting on the steps has the face of Michelangelo.

And then, staring out at us from the corner of the painting,

it's Raphael himself.

Raphael went on to decorate many more of the papal apartments in the Vatican.

By 1512, he'd emerged as the main rival to the divine Michelangelo in Rome.

Not yet 30, Raphael was now running a successful workshop in Rome.

He was renowned for the meticulous organisation of his studio.

His efficiency and the quality of service he provided for his clients became legendary.

Raphael employed a group of assistants to take over the bulk of his work,

freeing him to execute the important sections of the paintings, the faces and hands in particular.

He made sure that all his students were taught to draw and paint like him,

so their work was indistinguishable from that of their masters.

In this way, he was able to take on a vast number of commissions and run a hugely profitable business.

In another shrewd move, he employed an engraver, Marc Antonio Raimondi,

to make prints of many of his paintings, so that his work became known to a wider public.

He even created images solely for reproduction, like this massacre of the innocents,

a popular if brutal image from the master of the Madonna and child.

According to numerous contemporary accounts, Raphael attracted many admirers.

Wherever he went, he was followed by a train of students and friends,

prompting Michelangelo to mock him, comparing him to a sergeant with his troop.

Raphael responded to the insult by calling Michelangelo the hangman,

on account of his dour and reclusive manner.

In 1515, Raphael finally got the chance to compete directly

with the artist he most wanted to surpass, Michelangelo,

when the new pope, Leo X, commissioned Raphael to produce a series of tapestries

to hang on the lower walls around the Sistine Chapel.

Of course, Raphael himself didn't produce tapestries.

What he did was produce the designs, cartoons as they're known.

A series of images, made on sheets of paper, roughly so big,

bound together with a primordial kind of glue,

and then usually sketched on by the artist using charcoal,

so black and white lines are produced,

so that the textile manufacturers can then use them,

cut in vertical strips to weave the composition.

But in fact, what Raphael does is something unprecedented in the history of art.

He produces full-sized designs for the tapestries in glorious technicolor,

depicting scenes from the New Testament,

in particular the lives of St Paul and St Peter,

the founding fathers of the Roman Catholic Church,

and particularly episodes were chosen that showed the idea of conversion

and inspiration that somehow might unite a church that was under increasing threat.

St Peter is always with yellow and blue,

St Paul is always with green and red,

and that's how we distinguish the saints throughout the series.

And what we have here at the Victorian Albert Museum

are ten of the cartoons that exist from what now art historians think was a series of 16.

And it's all about process.

Perhaps never before has an artist's approach to drawing, to colour,

and then to the transfer from one medium to another,

been so dramatically shown as they are here.

On one wall you can see the cartoon for the miraculous draught of fishes,

the episode in the Bible where Christ says to the fishermen,

who later become his disciples,

throw your nets over that side of the boat after they'd found nothing,

and then suddenly they're teeming with fish.

And we see how Raphael designs the cartoon,

but he has to design it in a mirrored image.

And on the opposite wall is the tapestry itself.

Now, it's probably sacrilegious to say it,

because of course that is supposed to be the finished work of art.

But the cartoons themselves, where Raphael and his assistants have worked up,

in some ways are much more moving, much more powerful.

That's where we see Raphael struggling to bring the figures to life

and to fill them with this vibrant colour.

These cartoons had a huge impact on art, particularly in northern Europe.

Later major artists like Rubens and Poussin were directly inspired

by the lessons that Raphael was teaching in these works.

Raphael continued to thrive in Rome.

He was universally admired for his painting and also his manners.

His exuberant and extroverted personality

also expressed itself in the seedier side of 16th century Italy.

In stark contrast to the sweet and pious Madonnas which had first made him famous,

Raphael was reputed to possess an insatiable appetite for women.

He had no problem satisfying his lust in Rome.

In a city where there were so many celibate clerics,

there was no end of young, single women available.

And Raphael and his friends took full advantage.

In a letter to his uncle, Raphael once mentioned his fruitless quest for a suitably perfect wife.

And in another letter, he complained about the famine of beautiful women in Rome.

He never married, but often kept mistresses.

Some of them sat as models for his paintings, like La Forn Arena.

But in his depiction of beauty, Raphael abandoned the faithful portrayal of nature

which so many 15th century artists had sought.

Instead, he deliberately used an imagined type of beauty.

This was the case with this picture, Galatea, painted in 1511.

It's a fresco of the sea nymph, who hears our lovers singing as she rides across the waves.

Galatea is a great example of the sensual but remote, almost unattainable beauty

for which Raphael became famous.

When asked where he'd found the model for the beautiful creature in this famous painting,

Raphael replied that having been unable to find a suitably beautiful woman in Rome,

he'd been forced to resort instead to a certain idea that springs from my mind.

Fittingly enough for one so concerned with idealised forms in art,

in 1516 Raphael was made curator of Roman antiquities

and given the task of cataloguing and preserving the city's Roman ruins.

These appointments perhaps stimulated his own interest in building.

Raphael had begun to dabble with what was then known as the Mother of the Arts,

architecture.

He'd made the sketches and then designs for friends' palaces.

And in turn he'd caught the eye of the Pope, Leo X,

who in 1514, on the death of Bramante,

made Raphael chief architect of this building, St Peter's Rome.

And so Rome had delivered everything Raphael wanted of it,

fame and success, and an increased salary.

And he was ready to live the good life.

Raphael's frolicking with Roman high society also had profound implications for his art.

It gave him privileged access to parts of the city that other artists couldn't reach.

And this is most clearly seen in the intimate portraits he made of Rome's elite,

for which he became ever more celebrated.

In 1513, Pope Julius II died, but his successor, Leo X, from the powerful Medici banking family,

was also impressed by Raphael and commissioned him to do more work in the Vatican.

Over the next five years, their relationship became very close.

And Raphael, who managed to put his sitters at ease,

finally got the commission to paint the Pope himself.

And that sense of rapport is strongly evident.

Rather than just showing Leo X on his own though,

Raphael depicts him with his two nephews,

Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de Rossi, their cardinals,

and the whole painting is a kind of symphony in red,

of different tones of red paint.

But what we see, I think, is a man of great power in this God-given office,

seemingly isolated, alienated, vulnerable, amidst the people that he's with.

He stares off into the distance,

and it's as if he's been captured in an unguarded moment,

and a moment of great intimacy.

And in fact, the year this work was painted, 1518,

the church had been thrown into a cataclysm,

because a German monk called Martin Luther

had just nailed a series of protestations

on the door of a church in Wittenberg,

and over the next three decades, the church was split.

And what Raphael gives us, unwittingly maybe,

is an image of the man at the eye of that storm.

Still in his thirties, Raphael had acquired an unprecedented position

in the cultural life of the papal court,

and a growing international reputation too.

The future appeared to promise only increased stature and wealth,

but Raphael's life was to be short.

His biographer, Vasari, records that it was ultimately

the artist's womanising exploits that were his undoing.

He secretly attended to his love affairs, Vasari wrote,

and pursued his amorous pleasures beyond all moderation.

On one occasion, the writer said, he happened to be even more immoderate than usual,

and returned home with a violent fever.

Too proud to confess the true nature of his illness,

Raphael was given the wrong treatment by doctors.

He was bled and grew faint and weak.

He died shortly afterwards on his birthday in 1520.

He was just 37 years old.

In accordance with his status at the papal court,

Raphael was buried with outstanding honours.

His corpse lay in state at the Vatican,

and then received the unique honour, for artists, of burial in the Pantheon,

a fitting tribute to one who so admired the classical world.

Raphael's art became the model for the teaching academies

which later flourished across Europe.

And for the next four centuries, in many respects,

Raphael was the dominant figure in Western art.

If you want to find out more about the artists and work explored in this series,

there's an accompanying book called Great Artists,

available in all good bookshops.