DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0039
RAPHAEL’S MASTERS
Raphael accompanied his master even to Florence. Impressions of Donatello’s
figures of saints occur even before the authenticated stay of Raphael in Florence,
in his drawings and in pictures by Perugino in which he collaborated. In a
pen drawing at Lille he copied the motive of the St John of the Apocalypse in
the Duomo of Florence {Raphaels Zeichnurigen1 I> io); the King Solomon in
the Cambio, in the immediate neighbourhood of which he may be supposed
to have been actively at work in 1499-1500, repeats the St Mark of Orsan-
michele, and the Archangel Michael in the Vallombrosa altarpiece Donatello’s
St George.
In the Cambio of Perugia and in the altarpiece of Vallombrosa we can
confidently seek for the share of Raphael, although in the case of the frescoes,
the arbitrary exaggeration of Venturi’s attributions should be a warning. On
the wall with the subject of Fortitude and Temperance the Fortitudo might be
by Raphael’s hand and the Horatius Cocles must be (Plate 10). One needs only
to compare these organic heads—the marvellous, distant gaze, the opening eyelids
modelled with a dark stroke on the under edge, the breathing plasticity of nose
and lips, the chin jutting out from the neck—-with the withered, lifeless faces to
right and left by the master and the other assistants.
On the wall with the Sibyls the youthful King Solomon stands out above
the others by its breadth of look, its spirit and the noble freedom of its bearing;
it is an interpretation of Donatello’s St Mark. We have here, of course, in
simple unconsciousness, and without presumption, the influence, as it were
regenerative, of the new spirit of the disciple and assistant upon Perugino’s
inventive power.
In the altarpiece of Vallombrosa the same reaction is repeated in the
Assumption of the Virgin (Plates 6, 8): on the left, beside the principal figure,
the angel is by Raphael, with the thoroughly musical gesture, from the enraptured
gaze and the marvellous loveliness of the fingers on the strings down to the stance of
the feet, unconstrained yet serving as a support for the harp. We need only
compare the corresponding figure on the other side, with its frigid look, the
lifeless bend of its fingers, and its impossible pose. But the head of the upward-
pointing angel below this figure has again the “clear-cut purity and a little
more” which, without being exactly beautiful, may be regarded as Raphael’s
signature. The St Michael to the right below (Plate 96), and the cherub head to
the left above him (Plate 9*2), are again marked out by the organic lines that we
know from Raphael’s innate style of drawing in these early years. This is set be-
yond doubt by drawings such as the head of a youth at Lille, and the angel with a
viola in the British Museum (Plate 16, R. 20> 22)- In these as in the painting
we have the peculiarities which he had no need to learn; he brought them with
him from the Marches, as something in which he was superior to master and work-
shop.
1 Hereafter cited as R.
C
21
Raphael accompanied his master even to Florence. Impressions of Donatello’s
figures of saints occur even before the authenticated stay of Raphael in Florence,
in his drawings and in pictures by Perugino in which he collaborated. In a
pen drawing at Lille he copied the motive of the St John of the Apocalypse in
the Duomo of Florence {Raphaels Zeichnurigen1 I> io); the King Solomon in
the Cambio, in the immediate neighbourhood of which he may be supposed
to have been actively at work in 1499-1500, repeats the St Mark of Orsan-
michele, and the Archangel Michael in the Vallombrosa altarpiece Donatello’s
St George.
In the Cambio of Perugia and in the altarpiece of Vallombrosa we can
confidently seek for the share of Raphael, although in the case of the frescoes,
the arbitrary exaggeration of Venturi’s attributions should be a warning. On
the wall with the subject of Fortitude and Temperance the Fortitudo might be
by Raphael’s hand and the Horatius Cocles must be (Plate 10). One needs only
to compare these organic heads—the marvellous, distant gaze, the opening eyelids
modelled with a dark stroke on the under edge, the breathing plasticity of nose
and lips, the chin jutting out from the neck—-with the withered, lifeless faces to
right and left by the master and the other assistants.
On the wall with the Sibyls the youthful King Solomon stands out above
the others by its breadth of look, its spirit and the noble freedom of its bearing;
it is an interpretation of Donatello’s St Mark. We have here, of course, in
simple unconsciousness, and without presumption, the influence, as it were
regenerative, of the new spirit of the disciple and assistant upon Perugino’s
inventive power.
In the altarpiece of Vallombrosa the same reaction is repeated in the
Assumption of the Virgin (Plates 6, 8): on the left, beside the principal figure,
the angel is by Raphael, with the thoroughly musical gesture, from the enraptured
gaze and the marvellous loveliness of the fingers on the strings down to the stance of
the feet, unconstrained yet serving as a support for the harp. We need only
compare the corresponding figure on the other side, with its frigid look, the
lifeless bend of its fingers, and its impossible pose. But the head of the upward-
pointing angel below this figure has again the “clear-cut purity and a little
more” which, without being exactly beautiful, may be regarded as Raphael’s
signature. The St Michael to the right below (Plate 96), and the cherub head to
the left above him (Plate 9*2), are again marked out by the organic lines that we
know from Raphael’s innate style of drawing in these early years. This is set be-
yond doubt by drawings such as the head of a youth at Lille, and the angel with a
viola in the British Museum (Plate 16, R. 20> 22)- In these as in the painting
we have the peculiarities which he had no need to learn; he brought them with
him from the Marches, as something in which he was superior to master and work-
shop.
1 Hereafter cited as R.
C
21