DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0052
RAPHAEL
construction, inscribed within the oval. This threefold deviation from the
straight line, combined with the harmony of flesh-colour, deep red, and blue
becoming ever deeper in tone, gives an impression of balanced softness. Sud-
denly He is before us again, out of space, out of those blue depths, triumphing
and gentle, still to bring his blessing to the world, from which nevertheless he
remains apart—and this makes this small picture resonant with an indescribable
majesty. What is schematic in Gothic has fallen away, what is really essential
remains; a figure out of the beyond touches our world, and we may recall once
more how closely Raphael is related—whether through actual contact or
through spiritual affinity—to the Northern revivalists of spiritual expression
through Gothic, Roger van der Weyden, Memling and Schongauer. The
affinity extends even to the lovely subtle brushwork in the colours. One might
say that Raphael alone in Italy is master of the reverent seriousness of the
craftsman in spreading these enamel-like colours on the well-prepared wood
panel; he alone carries the perfecting of technique, the final loving tribute of
craftsmanship, to that degree of richness of expression which the world admires
as a peculiarity of the old Flemish school, and then once again in Holbein.
Adherence to the origin and purpose of art, the religion of a workshop-
practice schooled only to express the other-worldly and for the service of the
divine, and striving to attain a sphere that lies beyond the trivial, this is what
gives resonance to the music of these representations.
Instigated by Perugino’s retrospective nature, Raphael must have acquired
a new, quite exceptional relationship to the religious art of the North. He was
familiar with it already from his Urbino days as an art convincing in its poetic,
devotional character. Now it was Schongauer, who as an engraver was able to
exercise an influence beyond the Alps, firing this young Italian alone with an
imagination for other-worldly expression and devout presentation.
We are not here concerned with details: a little cross in the halo, a cushion
for the child Christ to sit on, just as they occur in Schongauer—what do such
things signify beside a profound indebtedness in a work as a whole? What the
Colmar painter derived from the Gothic sense for craftsmanship—adaptability
to the prescribed conditions of material and structure, whether it were a wall
for a fresco, a wood-block or a silverplate to be engraved, survives in Raphael as
loyalty to the format of his pictures; every figure, every group is adapted to the
great significant pattern, full of significance in the notes sounded by it. It was
a favourite idea of Georg Dehio, who thought so highly of German art because
he so well understood Italian art, that Schongauer was a Raphaelite before
Raphael. Schongauer’s angels in the Last Judgment cycle in the Cathedral of
Breisach have lately reappeared out of the gloom and oblivion of centuries of
whitewash. Nothing nearer than this to Raphael is to be found in German art
before Italy began to make an impression on it. Take the angel to the right of the
Judge of the World (Plate 232)—the movement of the figure flows with the lines of
34
construction, inscribed within the oval. This threefold deviation from the
straight line, combined with the harmony of flesh-colour, deep red, and blue
becoming ever deeper in tone, gives an impression of balanced softness. Sud-
denly He is before us again, out of space, out of those blue depths, triumphing
and gentle, still to bring his blessing to the world, from which nevertheless he
remains apart—and this makes this small picture resonant with an indescribable
majesty. What is schematic in Gothic has fallen away, what is really essential
remains; a figure out of the beyond touches our world, and we may recall once
more how closely Raphael is related—whether through actual contact or
through spiritual affinity—to the Northern revivalists of spiritual expression
through Gothic, Roger van der Weyden, Memling and Schongauer. The
affinity extends even to the lovely subtle brushwork in the colours. One might
say that Raphael alone in Italy is master of the reverent seriousness of the
craftsman in spreading these enamel-like colours on the well-prepared wood
panel; he alone carries the perfecting of technique, the final loving tribute of
craftsmanship, to that degree of richness of expression which the world admires
as a peculiarity of the old Flemish school, and then once again in Holbein.
Adherence to the origin and purpose of art, the religion of a workshop-
practice schooled only to express the other-worldly and for the service of the
divine, and striving to attain a sphere that lies beyond the trivial, this is what
gives resonance to the music of these representations.
Instigated by Perugino’s retrospective nature, Raphael must have acquired
a new, quite exceptional relationship to the religious art of the North. He was
familiar with it already from his Urbino days as an art convincing in its poetic,
devotional character. Now it was Schongauer, who as an engraver was able to
exercise an influence beyond the Alps, firing this young Italian alone with an
imagination for other-worldly expression and devout presentation.
We are not here concerned with details: a little cross in the halo, a cushion
for the child Christ to sit on, just as they occur in Schongauer—what do such
things signify beside a profound indebtedness in a work as a whole? What the
Colmar painter derived from the Gothic sense for craftsmanship—adaptability
to the prescribed conditions of material and structure, whether it were a wall
for a fresco, a wood-block or a silverplate to be engraved, survives in Raphael as
loyalty to the format of his pictures; every figure, every group is adapted to the
great significant pattern, full of significance in the notes sounded by it. It was
a favourite idea of Georg Dehio, who thought so highly of German art because
he so well understood Italian art, that Schongauer was a Raphaelite before
Raphael. Schongauer’s angels in the Last Judgment cycle in the Cathedral of
Breisach have lately reappeared out of the gloom and oblivion of centuries of
whitewash. Nothing nearer than this to Raphael is to be found in German art
before Italy began to make an impression on it. Take the angel to the right of the
Judge of the World (Plate 232)—the movement of the figure flows with the lines of
34