DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0371
AFTER-ECHOES OF RAPHAEL
§ An Interpretation of the Transfiguration
Moreover, interpretation of the Transfiguration places Raphael’s achieve-
ment in the unapproachable, elemental sphere of supreme artistic creation;
Raphael, himself one of those immortal “naive” beings, has represented for us,
in a quasi-allegorical painting, this reduction of semblance to semblance, the
primal process of the naive artist and at the same time of Apollinian culture. In
his Transfiguration the lower half, with the boy possessed of an evil spirit,'
the despairing attendants, the Disciples in anguished perplexity, displays to
us a reflection of eternal, primal suffering, the sole foundation of the world:
“the ‘semblance’ is here a reflected semblance of eternal opposition, the father
of all things. Out of this semblance now rises up, like an ambrosial vapour, a
vision-like new world of semblance of which those who are involved in the first
semblance see nothing—a radiant floating in purest joy and contemplation
free from suffering, beaming from wide-open eyes. Here we have before our
gaze, in highest art-symbolism, that Apolline world of beauty and its under-
ground counterpart, the terrible wisdom of Silenus; and we apprehend, by
intuition, their mutual inevitability. . . .”x Of the three grades into which the
artist has here divided humanity—the perplexed sufferers, the bewildered
dreamers, and those in heavenly ecstasy, Nietzsche discovered later that “we
no longer look out on the world in this manner, nor would even Raphael be free to do so
any longer. He would behold with his eyes a new Transfiguration”.1 2
To-day, after half a century, the one truth in such a pronouncement deserves
still to be taken to heart and firmly established: the way to this greatest of
plastic poets and interpreters of earth and the beyond can only lead through
our own spiritual life; for humanity and for time his art offers a mirror and a
measure, and his creation has to be measured by the richness of its vitality; this
is the eternal, sublime claim to which Nietzsche gave validity anew. And
therewith his audacity has induced in the beholder an exaltation that forbids
him any more to enter the sanctuary of this art except as one consecrated to an
act of self-surrender.
As an addition to the ancient ecclesiastical tradition, the academic cult,
that astonishing Protestant deepening of appreciation in the Classical period,
and the Catholic revival in the age of Romanticism, Nietzsche was able
to leave behind him, as a heritage to the generations after him, now without a
leader, a renewed sense for the true values of Humanism, with which to find
again the way into Raphael’s world also. It thus became possible to succeed
in effacing completely the immediate past, with its spiritual emptiness, and to
bring ourselves into association with the nobler preceding age, to knit up once
again the seemingly broken tradition.
1 Gehurt der Tragodie, 4 (ed. Musarion, III, p. 36).
2“Morgenrote”, I, 8 (ed. Musarion, X, p. 15).
353
§ An Interpretation of the Transfiguration
Moreover, interpretation of the Transfiguration places Raphael’s achieve-
ment in the unapproachable, elemental sphere of supreme artistic creation;
Raphael, himself one of those immortal “naive” beings, has represented for us,
in a quasi-allegorical painting, this reduction of semblance to semblance, the
primal process of the naive artist and at the same time of Apollinian culture. In
his Transfiguration the lower half, with the boy possessed of an evil spirit,'
the despairing attendants, the Disciples in anguished perplexity, displays to
us a reflection of eternal, primal suffering, the sole foundation of the world:
“the ‘semblance’ is here a reflected semblance of eternal opposition, the father
of all things. Out of this semblance now rises up, like an ambrosial vapour, a
vision-like new world of semblance of which those who are involved in the first
semblance see nothing—a radiant floating in purest joy and contemplation
free from suffering, beaming from wide-open eyes. Here we have before our
gaze, in highest art-symbolism, that Apolline world of beauty and its under-
ground counterpart, the terrible wisdom of Silenus; and we apprehend, by
intuition, their mutual inevitability. . . .”x Of the three grades into which the
artist has here divided humanity—the perplexed sufferers, the bewildered
dreamers, and those in heavenly ecstasy, Nietzsche discovered later that “we
no longer look out on the world in this manner, nor would even Raphael be free to do so
any longer. He would behold with his eyes a new Transfiguration”.1 2
To-day, after half a century, the one truth in such a pronouncement deserves
still to be taken to heart and firmly established: the way to this greatest of
plastic poets and interpreters of earth and the beyond can only lead through
our own spiritual life; for humanity and for time his art offers a mirror and a
measure, and his creation has to be measured by the richness of its vitality; this
is the eternal, sublime claim to which Nietzsche gave validity anew. And
therewith his audacity has induced in the beholder an exaltation that forbids
him any more to enter the sanctuary of this art except as one consecrated to an
act of self-surrender.
As an addition to the ancient ecclesiastical tradition, the academic cult,
that astonishing Protestant deepening of appreciation in the Classical period,
and the Catholic revival in the age of Romanticism, Nietzsche was able
to leave behind him, as a heritage to the generations after him, now without a
leader, a renewed sense for the true values of Humanism, with which to find
again the way into Raphael’s world also. It thus became possible to succeed
in effacing completely the immediate past, with its spiritual emptiness, and to
bring ourselves into association with the nobler preceding age, to knit up once
again the seemingly broken tradition.
1 Gehurt der Tragodie, 4 (ed. Musarion, III, p. 36).
2“Morgenrote”, I, 8 (ed. Musarion, X, p. 15).
353