DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0166
RAPHAEL
so-called “Palladian motive”—an arch of which the archivolt appears to be
buttressed, as it were, by two upright structures. Can this really be accepted as an
invention of Raphael’s (Plates I57~i59)? Moreover, we may recall that it is to be
found already in the forecourt of the Mausoleum at Spalato; from that time on, a
perpetually enduring motive! In the interior, the cupola is seen at its junction
with the drum and vaulting encircled with a delicate cymation and bead-and-
dart ornament (Plates 159, 166); it almost calls to mind the classicalism of the
Brothers Adam. The cupola opens in the eye of the lantern; round the circle,
in purest Roman lettering, runs the inscription:
“ASTRA DEVS, NOS TEMPLA DAMVS, TV SIDERA PANDE”
“Thou, O God, gavest the stars, we the temple,
Spread thou above the firmament.”
The humble vault beneath the dome of heaven! For this, colour was certainly
intended, if not pictorial decoration.
§ Cupolas and Tondi: Cupola Conceptions in the Pictures
His imagination was dominated more and more by the idea of the dome
during his life in Rome; it exercised its power over the master-builder even
when he was painting pictures. The results of sensibility can hardly be dis-
missed as mere imagination; the habit of thinking in cupolas and of seeing
masses and forms arrange themselves in rounded shapes released in the painter
a peculiar aptitude for composing tondi. The great new, expansive form—
achieved in the second Stanza—adapts itself to the round shape—in the Alba
Madonna, still encircled by the landscape under the protecting vault of heaven,
in the Madonna della Sedia, itself circling, not unlike a cupola-painting filled
with a throng of figures, in which also there is not lacking a veritable opaion, a
shifted focus for the astounded upward gaze, in the arresting look on the counten-
ance of the Child.
In the great design for the Ascension, from the Bonnat Collection, the lumin-
ous calotte composed of cherubs’ heads sweeps above the Risen Christ. The
Sistine Madonna steps forward as out of a light blue tribuna. The comparison
appears to perfection, unknown perhaps to Raphael but to us inescapable, in the
St Cecilia (Plate 244): the figures stand around the saint in a formal arrange-
ment like pillars—the sky opens in a semicircle irradiated with streams of light the
upward progression from solid to ethereal, from colour to light, a chapel come alive.
The same mind is revealed in picture and building; this altarpiece has the power
of communicating to the worshippers in the church the spell of communion and
composure, the result achieved otherwise by a domed space. The guiding spirit
employs the same medium. From that time onwards this power belonged to
Raphael!
148
so-called “Palladian motive”—an arch of which the archivolt appears to be
buttressed, as it were, by two upright structures. Can this really be accepted as an
invention of Raphael’s (Plates I57~i59)? Moreover, we may recall that it is to be
found already in the forecourt of the Mausoleum at Spalato; from that time on, a
perpetually enduring motive! In the interior, the cupola is seen at its junction
with the drum and vaulting encircled with a delicate cymation and bead-and-
dart ornament (Plates 159, 166); it almost calls to mind the classicalism of the
Brothers Adam. The cupola opens in the eye of the lantern; round the circle,
in purest Roman lettering, runs the inscription:
“ASTRA DEVS, NOS TEMPLA DAMVS, TV SIDERA PANDE”
“Thou, O God, gavest the stars, we the temple,
Spread thou above the firmament.”
The humble vault beneath the dome of heaven! For this, colour was certainly
intended, if not pictorial decoration.
§ Cupolas and Tondi: Cupola Conceptions in the Pictures
His imagination was dominated more and more by the idea of the dome
during his life in Rome; it exercised its power over the master-builder even
when he was painting pictures. The results of sensibility can hardly be dis-
missed as mere imagination; the habit of thinking in cupolas and of seeing
masses and forms arrange themselves in rounded shapes released in the painter
a peculiar aptitude for composing tondi. The great new, expansive form—
achieved in the second Stanza—adapts itself to the round shape—in the Alba
Madonna, still encircled by the landscape under the protecting vault of heaven,
in the Madonna della Sedia, itself circling, not unlike a cupola-painting filled
with a throng of figures, in which also there is not lacking a veritable opaion, a
shifted focus for the astounded upward gaze, in the arresting look on the counten-
ance of the Child.
In the great design for the Ascension, from the Bonnat Collection, the lumin-
ous calotte composed of cherubs’ heads sweeps above the Risen Christ. The
Sistine Madonna steps forward as out of a light blue tribuna. The comparison
appears to perfection, unknown perhaps to Raphael but to us inescapable, in the
St Cecilia (Plate 244): the figures stand around the saint in a formal arrange-
ment like pillars—the sky opens in a semicircle irradiated with streams of light the
upward progression from solid to ethereal, from colour to light, a chapel come alive.
The same mind is revealed in picture and building; this altarpiece has the power
of communicating to the worshippers in the church the spell of communion and
composure, the result achieved otherwise by a domed space. The guiding spirit
employs the same medium. From that time onwards this power belonged to
Raphael!
148