DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0198
RAPHAEL
the right of the arch of the niche, they have retained more or less as they came
from Raphael’s hand, stand out somewhat too brightly against the unbroken
green. When here also, as in the case of the Prophets, the architecture still
extended rhythmically behind the figures in tones of bronze shaded off in per-
spective on pillars and entablatures, the whole undoubtedly had such a
splendidly harmonious appearance that it had no need of Palmaroli with his
“harmonising” devices.
Such a harmony of colour was for Raphael inseparable from linear resonance;
the sonorous pattern in which this series of women, putti and angels traverses
the rectangle broken by the niche and arch has long been admired. Compared
with the lunette of the Segnatura, with its linear pattern of the Judicial Virtues,
it has a more complex effect, and with its one-time architectural setting it
pervaded with powerful and pathetic rhythm the space to be filled. If the
period of Aufkldrung found the solution of such a problem difficult and therefore
worthy of admiration, Goethe commended its “secret symmetry” as something
that came as a matter of course to the master. Raphael here wove a legacy from
Gothic into his new style, with its play of atmosphere and space. A similar
procedure was adopted by Roger van der Weyden, the “last of the Gothics”
before him, when he set his great Descent from the Cross, in the Escorial, in
a golden, angular niche as if in an altar shrine; the feeling of space in the figures fits
in with the confined position, yet the gold ground produces the affect of a shrine.
In Van der Weyden two epochs were locked in conflict; Raphael consciously re-
verts to the adoption of methods from the times of the ultimate concentration of
expression. In this employment of the arch for the glorious motives of seated figures
we may also recognise an acknowledgment of the Antique, as for instance of the re-
clining Victories in the spandrels of the triumphal arches, or the Bacchus and
Ariadne in the Casali sarcophagus, now in Copenhagen. Yet Raphael comes
nearest to the Antique where he is independently inventing. The angel to the
left on the arch, as by his upward-pointing finger he gently suggests reconcile-
ment with death, of which the Sibylla Persica is writing, remains in movement
as he sits, having no need of repose; he is as buoyant as the nimble Messenger
of the Gods, resting for a few moments, in the delightful bronze at Naples, with
which however Raphael was not acquainted (Plate 203).
There are obvious dangers in all this beauty of form—with Raphael we our-
selves are always in danger of misunderstanding him, because we do not believe
him, with his facility, capable of deep thinking. Certainly Michael Angelo’s
solitary figures have descended with greater passion into the untrodden region;
here, heavenly love has had a part in them—the wings of the putti flutter like
butterflies amongst them, and the predictions that they take up out of the urns
at their feet are answered by the angels, the amori, with comforting gestures
pointing to the heavens, or they bear the tidings of Resurrection triumphantly
to all the winds—for the flanking angels seem to have snatched up the palm-
180
the right of the arch of the niche, they have retained more or less as they came
from Raphael’s hand, stand out somewhat too brightly against the unbroken
green. When here also, as in the case of the Prophets, the architecture still
extended rhythmically behind the figures in tones of bronze shaded off in per-
spective on pillars and entablatures, the whole undoubtedly had such a
splendidly harmonious appearance that it had no need of Palmaroli with his
“harmonising” devices.
Such a harmony of colour was for Raphael inseparable from linear resonance;
the sonorous pattern in which this series of women, putti and angels traverses
the rectangle broken by the niche and arch has long been admired. Compared
with the lunette of the Segnatura, with its linear pattern of the Judicial Virtues,
it has a more complex effect, and with its one-time architectural setting it
pervaded with powerful and pathetic rhythm the space to be filled. If the
period of Aufkldrung found the solution of such a problem difficult and therefore
worthy of admiration, Goethe commended its “secret symmetry” as something
that came as a matter of course to the master. Raphael here wove a legacy from
Gothic into his new style, with its play of atmosphere and space. A similar
procedure was adopted by Roger van der Weyden, the “last of the Gothics”
before him, when he set his great Descent from the Cross, in the Escorial, in
a golden, angular niche as if in an altar shrine; the feeling of space in the figures fits
in with the confined position, yet the gold ground produces the affect of a shrine.
In Van der Weyden two epochs were locked in conflict; Raphael consciously re-
verts to the adoption of methods from the times of the ultimate concentration of
expression. In this employment of the arch for the glorious motives of seated figures
we may also recognise an acknowledgment of the Antique, as for instance of the re-
clining Victories in the spandrels of the triumphal arches, or the Bacchus and
Ariadne in the Casali sarcophagus, now in Copenhagen. Yet Raphael comes
nearest to the Antique where he is independently inventing. The angel to the
left on the arch, as by his upward-pointing finger he gently suggests reconcile-
ment with death, of which the Sibylla Persica is writing, remains in movement
as he sits, having no need of repose; he is as buoyant as the nimble Messenger
of the Gods, resting for a few moments, in the delightful bronze at Naples, with
which however Raphael was not acquainted (Plate 203).
There are obvious dangers in all this beauty of form—with Raphael we our-
selves are always in danger of misunderstanding him, because we do not believe
him, with his facility, capable of deep thinking. Certainly Michael Angelo’s
solitary figures have descended with greater passion into the untrodden region;
here, heavenly love has had a part in them—the wings of the putti flutter like
butterflies amongst them, and the predictions that they take up out of the urns
at their feet are answered by the angels, the amori, with comforting gestures
pointing to the heavens, or they bear the tidings of Resurrection triumphantly
to all the winds—for the flanking angels seem to have snatched up the palm-
180