DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0087
INTRODUCTORY
describing the i School of Athens ’ as in the style of Perugino.
In both, Raphael was himself, an individual owing much to the
example of others, and perhaps less free from the influence of his
place and time than many other men of less wide ideals and more
powerful limitations, but yet a concrete, complicated soul, im-
possible to sum up in any phrase or technical comparison. But
it is far more wrong, in the analysis of this so-called Florentine
period, to seize upon the traces of foreign influence that can be
found in details or in general characteristics, and to dwell upon
them in words until they assume the aspect of a whole descrip-
tion. In this way the work of any man, artist or thinker, can be
resolved into component factors which, while they do not satisfy
immediate sympathy, such as is felt by the ordinary reader, or
the deeper attention of a thoughtful study, are too quickly
confounded by the half-critical and unsympathetic world of
connoisseurs with an account of the man as a whole.
Raphael was, even at the date when he painted the i Sposa-
lizio,’ too much a master of a definite and developed style to fall
either at once or completely into a foreign manner. He had
learned all that Perugia could teach him in the art of conception
and execution, in colour and line, in figure and in space. But,
in the natural course of his development, he had begun to advance
beyond the range of his contemporaries, and the directions of
his advance were already so much in keeping with the tendencies
of Florentine art, that it is held by some that their manifestation
is a proof of previous acquaintance with Florentine methods. Be
this as it may, he only needed further familiarity with the work of
other men who were advancing in his direction, to help him to
insist upon the qualities which were already growing up in his
work, to cause them, instead of being excrescences and mere
details in an antiquated and conventional scheme, to become
central and dominant in his work, transfusing instead of adorn-
ing, and mastering instead of merely attending.
What these qualities were has appeared from the consideration
describing the i School of Athens ’ as in the style of Perugino.
In both, Raphael was himself, an individual owing much to the
example of others, and perhaps less free from the influence of his
place and time than many other men of less wide ideals and more
powerful limitations, but yet a concrete, complicated soul, im-
possible to sum up in any phrase or technical comparison. But
it is far more wrong, in the analysis of this so-called Florentine
period, to seize upon the traces of foreign influence that can be
found in details or in general characteristics, and to dwell upon
them in words until they assume the aspect of a whole descrip-
tion. In this way the work of any man, artist or thinker, can be
resolved into component factors which, while they do not satisfy
immediate sympathy, such as is felt by the ordinary reader, or
the deeper attention of a thoughtful study, are too quickly
confounded by the half-critical and unsympathetic world of
connoisseurs with an account of the man as a whole.
Raphael was, even at the date when he painted the i Sposa-
lizio,’ too much a master of a definite and developed style to fall
either at once or completely into a foreign manner. He had
learned all that Perugia could teach him in the art of conception
and execution, in colour and line, in figure and in space. But,
in the natural course of his development, he had begun to advance
beyond the range of his contemporaries, and the directions of
his advance were already so much in keeping with the tendencies
of Florentine art, that it is held by some that their manifestation
is a proof of previous acquaintance with Florentine methods. Be
this as it may, he only needed further familiarity with the work of
other men who were advancing in his direction, to help him to
insist upon the qualities which were already growing up in his
work, to cause them, instead of being excrescences and mere
details in an antiquated and conventional scheme, to become
central and dominant in his work, transfusing instead of adorn-
ing, and mastering instead of merely attending.
What these qualities were has appeared from the consideration