DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0241
RAPHAEL AND GOTHIC
the days when he lived in his father’s house and was ever anew becoming his “duca
e poeta”. And thus, on his path to the beyond, he must have been filled with
enthusiasm and uplift by the god appearing from above in the Belvedere (Plate 71).
But the revelation of the Sistine Madonna gains its convincing power not only
from the light tread, nor from the sublime gaze out of another sphere; the un-
earthly character of the figures becomes clear first of all in the line that sweeps
from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, as in Gothic, when the saints
float across the scene as not of this world. Whence it came about that these
inborn ideas in Raphael could find themselves in unison with Northern art,
“state content! Humana gente al quia” . . .
For us, as for his poet when he looked back from Paradise to earth, source and
outflow coalesce.
§ Properties common to North and South
The distinction between Northern and Southern art is stressed often enough,
and clearly recognisable. But one who, stimulated and refreshed by an alien
nature, turns back to the indigenous and becomes aware, by a responsiveness
that is all the greater, of what belongs to himself, will thus be ready to greet
related features in the alien type. For the most part we discover strong personal
qualities separating us from what is alien; yet the power revealing itself in what
is common is stronger. To become conscious of this power seems to us the higher
duty; it leads to brighter spheres of knowledge.
Those who see the true elements of beauty belonging to art north of the
Alps precisely in the fact that the pattern of line and colour is entirely domi-
nated by inspiration, those who have been struck by the manner in which this
devotion to expression suffers every personal touch of the brush to become fused
in the enamel-like quality in the application of the colours, will be struck by one
fact as by a miracle; it will seem to them miraculous that this unison of pattern
and expression, this fidelity to craftsmanship, of the most refined late Gothic
painters such as Memling and Schongauer, is to be met with beyond the Alps
only in Raphael, whose art represents precisely an epitome of the Italic type
and of that majestic quality which belongs to the South.
The points at which his path crossed the tracks of Northerners in Italy would
soon be counted up if we were concerned only with the game of seeking for
borrowings, which however can never be allowed to signify “influence”.
§ Raphael’s organic Response to Northern Art
The circumstance must be taken into account that the veneration for Northern
art already awakened in him at Urbino, in the presence of JUSTUS VAN GENT
and, it may well be also, of HIERONYMUS BOSGH, was fostered still further
at Perugia by Schongauer’s engravings, and followed him in Florence when he
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the days when he lived in his father’s house and was ever anew becoming his “duca
e poeta”. And thus, on his path to the beyond, he must have been filled with
enthusiasm and uplift by the god appearing from above in the Belvedere (Plate 71).
But the revelation of the Sistine Madonna gains its convincing power not only
from the light tread, nor from the sublime gaze out of another sphere; the un-
earthly character of the figures becomes clear first of all in the line that sweeps
from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, as in Gothic, when the saints
float across the scene as not of this world. Whence it came about that these
inborn ideas in Raphael could find themselves in unison with Northern art,
“state content! Humana gente al quia” . . .
For us, as for his poet when he looked back from Paradise to earth, source and
outflow coalesce.
§ Properties common to North and South
The distinction between Northern and Southern art is stressed often enough,
and clearly recognisable. But one who, stimulated and refreshed by an alien
nature, turns back to the indigenous and becomes aware, by a responsiveness
that is all the greater, of what belongs to himself, will thus be ready to greet
related features in the alien type. For the most part we discover strong personal
qualities separating us from what is alien; yet the power revealing itself in what
is common is stronger. To become conscious of this power seems to us the higher
duty; it leads to brighter spheres of knowledge.
Those who see the true elements of beauty belonging to art north of the
Alps precisely in the fact that the pattern of line and colour is entirely domi-
nated by inspiration, those who have been struck by the manner in which this
devotion to expression suffers every personal touch of the brush to become fused
in the enamel-like quality in the application of the colours, will be struck by one
fact as by a miracle; it will seem to them miraculous that this unison of pattern
and expression, this fidelity to craftsmanship, of the most refined late Gothic
painters such as Memling and Schongauer, is to be met with beyond the Alps
only in Raphael, whose art represents precisely an epitome of the Italic type
and of that majestic quality which belongs to the South.
The points at which his path crossed the tracks of Northerners in Italy would
soon be counted up if we were concerned only with the game of seeking for
borrowings, which however can never be allowed to signify “influence”.
§ Raphael’s organic Response to Northern Art
The circumstance must be taken into account that the veneration for Northern
art already awakened in him at Urbino, in the presence of JUSTUS VAN GENT
and, it may well be also, of HIERONYMUS BOSGH, was fostered still further
at Perugia by Schongauer’s engravings, and followed him in Florence when he
223