DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0151
ROMAN MADONNAS
is the same on the nose and round the eyes—a juxtaposition of diaphanous roseleaf
and mother-of-pearl which is otherwise regarded as the signature of Titian. The
conventional red and blue colours of the Madonna are attuned to the whole
more delicately than in the Madonna della Sedia; chromatic transitions of colour
to the whitish light on brow and cheeks are provided by the wine-red, gold-
striped kerchief, passing through the gold-worked veil and the ochre-brown hair,
with straw-coloured lights on individual shining strands. The gleam here and
in the eye is almost the same—the white reflection on the iris of pale bluish
tone. The child’s head, blooming, alive, beams forth in front of the cold blue
of the cloak and the green of the curtain, among the warmest tones—the red
of the dress and the brown of the head of St John—which are a triumph for the
artist through the fluid quality of the painting.
Those who wish to know why Raphael was held in repute as a painter in
such a vital period should join the ranks of the worshippers before this picture
in the Pinakothek.
When this picture came into being, Raphael had familiarised himself with
mothers of the people in the Mass of Bolsena, and the other-worldly had
revealed itself to him. The world of his thoughts was in perpetual intercourse
with the things of the beyond, which he had scarcely had new opportunities
of painting since the Disputa. The vision of the heavenly world revealing
itself to the earthly never forsook him again after those first designs for the
apparition of the Virgin above the Apostles beside the sarcophagus. The studies
for the Resurrection had once again summarised in a condensed form this
effect of an apparition upon earth; its last appearance was to be on the Heliodorus
ceiling, in the Almighty announcing his promises to Noah, and in the Burning
Bush; it is also the vehicle of the convulsion, caused by the figures of the Apostles,
amongst the hosts of Attila. But the elevating and consolatory clearness of the
vision when Heaven opens and the mediatress of Heaven’s love was to appear
before the eyes of earthly men, was still withheld.
To conjure this into solid form out of the chaos of ideas was reserved for a
commission. It seems that the merit of providing Raphael with the first
opportunity to express himself in this strain belongs to the Papal historian
and friend of Julius II, Sigismondo de’ Conti; it was he who gave the com-
mission for the Madonna for the High Altar of the Basilica of Santa Maria in
Araceli, behind which he wished to find a burial-place. His family two gener-
ations later allowed the picture to be brought to San Francesco at Foligno.
Then it received its name, when it came to the Vatican after the Paris inter-
lude of 1797-1815.
Conti died in February, 1512, ayearbeforehis Papal master. Raphael will thus
have conceived the composition of the Madonna of Foligno (Plates 145, 146) at
the time of the First Stanza. In actual fact, the revelation of the Virgin, in a truly
other-worldly guise, is to be found with a drawing for the School of Athens, in char*
K 133
is the same on the nose and round the eyes—a juxtaposition of diaphanous roseleaf
and mother-of-pearl which is otherwise regarded as the signature of Titian. The
conventional red and blue colours of the Madonna are attuned to the whole
more delicately than in the Madonna della Sedia; chromatic transitions of colour
to the whitish light on brow and cheeks are provided by the wine-red, gold-
striped kerchief, passing through the gold-worked veil and the ochre-brown hair,
with straw-coloured lights on individual shining strands. The gleam here and
in the eye is almost the same—the white reflection on the iris of pale bluish
tone. The child’s head, blooming, alive, beams forth in front of the cold blue
of the cloak and the green of the curtain, among the warmest tones—the red
of the dress and the brown of the head of St John—which are a triumph for the
artist through the fluid quality of the painting.
Those who wish to know why Raphael was held in repute as a painter in
such a vital period should join the ranks of the worshippers before this picture
in the Pinakothek.
When this picture came into being, Raphael had familiarised himself with
mothers of the people in the Mass of Bolsena, and the other-worldly had
revealed itself to him. The world of his thoughts was in perpetual intercourse
with the things of the beyond, which he had scarcely had new opportunities
of painting since the Disputa. The vision of the heavenly world revealing
itself to the earthly never forsook him again after those first designs for the
apparition of the Virgin above the Apostles beside the sarcophagus. The studies
for the Resurrection had once again summarised in a condensed form this
effect of an apparition upon earth; its last appearance was to be on the Heliodorus
ceiling, in the Almighty announcing his promises to Noah, and in the Burning
Bush; it is also the vehicle of the convulsion, caused by the figures of the Apostles,
amongst the hosts of Attila. But the elevating and consolatory clearness of the
vision when Heaven opens and the mediatress of Heaven’s love was to appear
before the eyes of earthly men, was still withheld.
To conjure this into solid form out of the chaos of ideas was reserved for a
commission. It seems that the merit of providing Raphael with the first
opportunity to express himself in this strain belongs to the Papal historian
and friend of Julius II, Sigismondo de’ Conti; it was he who gave the com-
mission for the Madonna for the High Altar of the Basilica of Santa Maria in
Araceli, behind which he wished to find a burial-place. His family two gener-
ations later allowed the picture to be brought to San Francesco at Foligno.
Then it received its name, when it came to the Vatican after the Paris inter-
lude of 1797-1815.
Conti died in February, 1512, ayearbeforehis Papal master. Raphael will thus
have conceived the composition of the Madonna of Foligno (Plates 145, 146) at
the time of the First Stanza. In actual fact, the revelation of the Virgin, in a truly
other-worldly guise, is to be found with a drawing for the School of Athens, in char*
K 133