DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0047
APPRENTICESHIP
this pattern of gestures, rendered in the most telling colours; is it too much to
say that this born painter of histories amazes us here at the very start by his
accomplishment? The means of expression came thronging to his hand;
we already foresee the master who has the same means at hand later for his
Plato and Aristotle, and who is also at ease, as here in the Dream, in a sphere
above the earthly and capable of bearing witness to it. The monumental creator
with his far-reaching influences, the visionary with his power of convincing,
appears here before our eyes—and it is a young man of the world capable of
seeing through the phenomena in society with an instinctively sure perspicacity
and of controlling them for his own ends. Even before we know the theme, the
essence of what is meant is there before our eyes. Even if it is true that the
suggestion came from Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, this would speak for the
painter’s humanistic width of culture, natural to a man of Urbino; but it was
this man of culture precisely to whom it was granted to give visible shape to the
ideas of a highly cultivated society. This is true illustration—to bring into the
light what is dark and wavering as a vague apparition by fixing it in living
shape. Raphael no longer clings to the text; he transposes the thought, newly
vitalised, into his own sensual world. And here he finds naturally that rhythm
of narrative and presentment which alone is suited to this free realm of ideas.
Whilst in the Cambio his teacher is laboriously using, for the sages of the ancient
world, his cartoons that had before served for saints, and Signorelli introduces
his Pan among the Shepherds into a group of the Sacra Conversazione, here the
true painter of humanism arises. The theme is not one that is set for him, but
innate, romantic as a fairy-tale familiar from the days of childhood onwards;
and his creative power triumphs in a little panel like this no less than in later
days, when he had to give form to the greatest ideas of Renaissance society.
§ The Three Graces
Thus he brought to the Three Graces also something more than a know-
ledge of the antique group (Plate 234). A chord of three ethereal notes weaves it-
self above the favoured earth, which floats under a whitish haze in terracotta and
reseda. In this haze is poised the golden, living flame of the noble forms, dream-
like, void of desire; about their limbs plays softly the light-flooded breeze of the
valley. Thrice this soft pale tone of the landscape is traversed by the warm colour
of their bodies, the first bashful, the middle one full of dignity, the third easy and
unconstrained in bearing; and just as in their surroundings the zones of colour
border upon one another in gentle contrast—the sky, the blue-shaded terracotta
of the mountains, the surface of the misty lake, the smooth green of the undulat-
ing ground—so there is a play of ever-repeated waves surrounding and traversing
these limits: the gentle flow of the arms ripples from below against the pronounced
pattern of the golden balls and the heads; below again, glide the dark contours
of the torso, the undulation of the knees, the soft line of the feet treading the
29
this pattern of gestures, rendered in the most telling colours; is it too much to
say that this born painter of histories amazes us here at the very start by his
accomplishment? The means of expression came thronging to his hand;
we already foresee the master who has the same means at hand later for his
Plato and Aristotle, and who is also at ease, as here in the Dream, in a sphere
above the earthly and capable of bearing witness to it. The monumental creator
with his far-reaching influences, the visionary with his power of convincing,
appears here before our eyes—and it is a young man of the world capable of
seeing through the phenomena in society with an instinctively sure perspicacity
and of controlling them for his own ends. Even before we know the theme, the
essence of what is meant is there before our eyes. Even if it is true that the
suggestion came from Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, this would speak for the
painter’s humanistic width of culture, natural to a man of Urbino; but it was
this man of culture precisely to whom it was granted to give visible shape to the
ideas of a highly cultivated society. This is true illustration—to bring into the
light what is dark and wavering as a vague apparition by fixing it in living
shape. Raphael no longer clings to the text; he transposes the thought, newly
vitalised, into his own sensual world. And here he finds naturally that rhythm
of narrative and presentment which alone is suited to this free realm of ideas.
Whilst in the Cambio his teacher is laboriously using, for the sages of the ancient
world, his cartoons that had before served for saints, and Signorelli introduces
his Pan among the Shepherds into a group of the Sacra Conversazione, here the
true painter of humanism arises. The theme is not one that is set for him, but
innate, romantic as a fairy-tale familiar from the days of childhood onwards;
and his creative power triumphs in a little panel like this no less than in later
days, when he had to give form to the greatest ideas of Renaissance society.
§ The Three Graces
Thus he brought to the Three Graces also something more than a know-
ledge of the antique group (Plate 234). A chord of three ethereal notes weaves it-
self above the favoured earth, which floats under a whitish haze in terracotta and
reseda. In this haze is poised the golden, living flame of the noble forms, dream-
like, void of desire; about their limbs plays softly the light-flooded breeze of the
valley. Thrice this soft pale tone of the landscape is traversed by the warm colour
of their bodies, the first bashful, the middle one full of dignity, the third easy and
unconstrained in bearing; and just as in their surroundings the zones of colour
border upon one another in gentle contrast—the sky, the blue-shaded terracotta
of the mountains, the surface of the misty lake, the smooth green of the undulat-
ing ground—so there is a play of ever-repeated waves surrounding and traversing
these limits: the gentle flow of the arms ripples from below against the pronounced
pattern of the golden balls and the heads; below again, glide the dark contours
of the torso, the undulation of the knees, the soft line of the feet treading the
29