DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0048
RAPHAEL
ground. The exquisitely clear, unconcealed outline of the individual figure is
repeated in the entire group of sisters; forms open up, releasing the gaze,
related to the flamelike tracery-patterns of Gothic windows, in the flickering
interplay of the colour as well. And this is scarcely an accident, for we have
here again the great media of this art; and its vital law, 4Tn the beginning
was pattern”, fills the picture in every part with form saturated with the spirit-
ual. These curves, scarcely touching the ground in their flow, unearthly,
ethereal—the element that in ecclesiastical art gives an effect of sanctity—here
convey the blithe tread of blissful beings. Even he, this young harbinger of the
world of the gods, is not entirely emancipated from the conventions of centuries-
old ecclesiastical art that dictated the forms of figure and gesture. At what
prior period could there have been such a release? It is not merely that “in
the South, what is great and beautiful is of itself sacred”. Some people think
that they see in Raphael’s heads of the Madonna the only form known to the
mystic when he desires to do homage to beauty. But the young humanist was a
painter, and the same landscape that, on other occasions, with its grand lines
in the evening twilight, is fraught with the solemn repose of nature as the setting
of a sacred melody, here wraps in a sunny glow of consecration the three god-
desses. To them belongs the daylight, their bright loveliness is in accord with
the beauty of the mountain contours and this sunny atmosphere.
The Monte Subasio, by Assisi, was hardly conscious of the cult to which its
exquisite colour-harmony of rose violet would one day provide a foil, but its
beautiful lines are taken up by the lines of these figures just as if some temple
of the Ancient world had to be built in congruity with the natural formation
of the site.
This accord of form and landscape arises from the all-embracing sensibility
which now for the first time adopted humanism as truly part of life and, in a
select band of leaders, succeeded in harmonising it with their own existence.
It was in the golden glow of this living heathen temple before the heights of
Assisi that this happy equilibrium of spirit and form, in true accord with the
dignity of man, first became visible. It was in a temple at Assisi, about three
hundred years later, through Goethe speaking to Germans, that the meaning of
the Classical again became clear: the Classical consists in what is sanctioned
by the human senses, a natural growth ever breaking forth anew out of the
Primal Cause. And what followed? A Greek temple was built among the pine-
clad heights above the Danube, Classicism was taught beside the foaming
Isar, and the figure was invented of the great “classical draughtsman”, to be
enjoyed in mere paper currency!
The humanistic backgrounds of these little pictures from a one-time diptych
—they once belonged together—have been brilliantly interpreted as part of
the survival of the Antique: a young Scipione Borghese, making his entry as a
knight into the world, may have provided the occasion for this combination of
30
ground. The exquisitely clear, unconcealed outline of the individual figure is
repeated in the entire group of sisters; forms open up, releasing the gaze,
related to the flamelike tracery-patterns of Gothic windows, in the flickering
interplay of the colour as well. And this is scarcely an accident, for we have
here again the great media of this art; and its vital law, 4Tn the beginning
was pattern”, fills the picture in every part with form saturated with the spirit-
ual. These curves, scarcely touching the ground in their flow, unearthly,
ethereal—the element that in ecclesiastical art gives an effect of sanctity—here
convey the blithe tread of blissful beings. Even he, this young harbinger of the
world of the gods, is not entirely emancipated from the conventions of centuries-
old ecclesiastical art that dictated the forms of figure and gesture. At what
prior period could there have been such a release? It is not merely that “in
the South, what is great and beautiful is of itself sacred”. Some people think
that they see in Raphael’s heads of the Madonna the only form known to the
mystic when he desires to do homage to beauty. But the young humanist was a
painter, and the same landscape that, on other occasions, with its grand lines
in the evening twilight, is fraught with the solemn repose of nature as the setting
of a sacred melody, here wraps in a sunny glow of consecration the three god-
desses. To them belongs the daylight, their bright loveliness is in accord with
the beauty of the mountain contours and this sunny atmosphere.
The Monte Subasio, by Assisi, was hardly conscious of the cult to which its
exquisite colour-harmony of rose violet would one day provide a foil, but its
beautiful lines are taken up by the lines of these figures just as if some temple
of the Ancient world had to be built in congruity with the natural formation
of the site.
This accord of form and landscape arises from the all-embracing sensibility
which now for the first time adopted humanism as truly part of life and, in a
select band of leaders, succeeded in harmonising it with their own existence.
It was in the golden glow of this living heathen temple before the heights of
Assisi that this happy equilibrium of spirit and form, in true accord with the
dignity of man, first became visible. It was in a temple at Assisi, about three
hundred years later, through Goethe speaking to Germans, that the meaning of
the Classical again became clear: the Classical consists in what is sanctioned
by the human senses, a natural growth ever breaking forth anew out of the
Primal Cause. And what followed? A Greek temple was built among the pine-
clad heights above the Danube, Classicism was taught beside the foaming
Isar, and the figure was invented of the great “classical draughtsman”, to be
enjoyed in mere paper currency!
The humanistic backgrounds of these little pictures from a one-time diptych
—they once belonged together—have been brilliantly interpreted as part of
the survival of the Antique: a young Scipione Borghese, making his entry as a
knight into the world, may have provided the occasion for this combination of
30