DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0173
RAPHAEL AS ARCHITECT
ing, of itself produces on the eye, as it feels its way over the surface, the effect
of painting. In this case there was in addition the rhythm of shaded painting.
Against this background stood out the antique figures in the niches, happily
and with room to breathe, and those standing opposite in the arcades answered
them. Between them, with his gaze on the blue of the sunlit distance which
restored new life to them, the strolling visitor walked from pillar to pillar,
with ever-changing excitement. His eye was greeted ever afresh, from the
pilasters, by antique motives and pictures of sheer joie-de-vivre, as by familiar
melodies he listened to with delight.
Twelve times over from bay to bay the manner of the vault-decoration
changes; but all the while the sky looks in upon the airy gallery, and sheds its
light through the larger openings of the vault-surfaces upon the landscapes
with a few biblical figures. The gaze is enticed and directed away from the
angles and pendentives to the airy summit—it is the light-motive of the Chigi
dome in endless variations (Plate 167).
The sectroids or spherical trapezes of which the vaults in the individual
bays are made up, are in each case interrupted by a picture—spherical rect-
angles, some of them curved at the top in the segment of the arch; in the first
and last (thirteenth), he gave the pictures the form of oblong hexagons. In
most cases, from out of the rigidly architectural or playfully fantastic decoration
of the ground, they open up a view into a landscape with figures from the Old
Testament. Only in the last bay are there four scenes from the Life of Christ.
Thus the pictures are not the essential part of the decoration; only as parts of
the whole they contribute, to the interplay of the profane motives, a certain
devotional composure.
§The Bible of Raphael: Grotesques
The nineteenth century thirst for pictures, in the presence of “Raphael’s
Bible”, has caused its wealth of phantasy to be forgotten; here, with amusing
drollery or compelling seriousness, he spoke to the visitor wandering amongst
things profane of those eternally sacred things also which he must take into
consideration if he was to give to humanistic subjects a sense of true human
dignity.
The term “grotesques” in itself allows us to divine how a lover of the Antique
with Raphael’s aptitude for assimilation and re-composition must of necessity
have made himself master, in the true sense of the phrase, of the Antique mode
of decoration that had just been discovered in the “Grotte”, the remains of
Nero’s Golden House brought to light just below the ground. According to
Vasari it was his assistant Giovanni da Udine who rediscovered the secret of
marble stucco. The essential feature of the style was the intermingling of
coloured plastic elements that are continued in colour on the flat surface—
scrolled stems terminating in the bodies of animals or human figures and once
155
ing, of itself produces on the eye, as it feels its way over the surface, the effect
of painting. In this case there was in addition the rhythm of shaded painting.
Against this background stood out the antique figures in the niches, happily
and with room to breathe, and those standing opposite in the arcades answered
them. Between them, with his gaze on the blue of the sunlit distance which
restored new life to them, the strolling visitor walked from pillar to pillar,
with ever-changing excitement. His eye was greeted ever afresh, from the
pilasters, by antique motives and pictures of sheer joie-de-vivre, as by familiar
melodies he listened to with delight.
Twelve times over from bay to bay the manner of the vault-decoration
changes; but all the while the sky looks in upon the airy gallery, and sheds its
light through the larger openings of the vault-surfaces upon the landscapes
with a few biblical figures. The gaze is enticed and directed away from the
angles and pendentives to the airy summit—it is the light-motive of the Chigi
dome in endless variations (Plate 167).
The sectroids or spherical trapezes of which the vaults in the individual
bays are made up, are in each case interrupted by a picture—spherical rect-
angles, some of them curved at the top in the segment of the arch; in the first
and last (thirteenth), he gave the pictures the form of oblong hexagons. In
most cases, from out of the rigidly architectural or playfully fantastic decoration
of the ground, they open up a view into a landscape with figures from the Old
Testament. Only in the last bay are there four scenes from the Life of Christ.
Thus the pictures are not the essential part of the decoration; only as parts of
the whole they contribute, to the interplay of the profane motives, a certain
devotional composure.
§The Bible of Raphael: Grotesques
The nineteenth century thirst for pictures, in the presence of “Raphael’s
Bible”, has caused its wealth of phantasy to be forgotten; here, with amusing
drollery or compelling seriousness, he spoke to the visitor wandering amongst
things profane of those eternally sacred things also which he must take into
consideration if he was to give to humanistic subjects a sense of true human
dignity.
The term “grotesques” in itself allows us to divine how a lover of the Antique
with Raphael’s aptitude for assimilation and re-composition must of necessity
have made himself master, in the true sense of the phrase, of the Antique mode
of decoration that had just been discovered in the “Grotte”, the remains of
Nero’s Golden House brought to light just below the ground. According to
Vasari it was his assistant Giovanni da Udine who rediscovered the secret of
marble stucco. The essential feature of the style was the intermingling of
coloured plastic elements that are continued in colour on the flat surface—
scrolled stems terminating in the bodies of animals or human figures and once
155