DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61022#0201
THE MADONNA OF FOLIGNO
Possibly the arrangement of ‘ Assumptions ’ or ‘ Coronations of
the Virgin,’ which was familiar to Raphael from his earliest days
in the studio of Perugino, was responsible for the conception of
this picture, but the adaptation of the arrangement for another
purpose is the logical outcome of the whole tendency of Raphael’s
art.
It is not, of course, the case that the main elements of the
picture are merely flung upon the canvas with such hints to their
intellectual combination as a purely primitive altar-piece might
have presented, although here, as in the case of the Tapestries,
Raphael shows a distinct tendency to revert to a characteristic
feature of earlier art. Such frank conventionality would have
been impossible, both for acceptance by the general taste of the
day and for assimilation with the developed style of each of the
component parts. A theme of symbolic character, unusual in
Raphael, serves as a pictorial vehicle to convey the intellectual
association. Much no doubt is still effected, as it would have been
in a primitive picture, by the upturned gaze of all the four figures
and by the uplifted arm of St. John, which recalls, through the
figure at the altar in the ‘Disputa,’ a whole series of frigid Perugian
‘Assumptions.’ This is a mere relic of the convention which was
in general being disregarded, and it is largely responsible for the
imperfection of the effect. The true unifying idea in the picture
is the vast imaginative glory, half halo and half sun, which rises
behind the figure of the Madonna and casts its radiance throughout
the picture, including, even, as arch-shaped rays piercing through
the clouds, the landscape of wood and water and town, and
touching with its golden light the curls of the angel in the fore-
ground. A spot of orange-yellow in the landscape, which seems
somehow to be connected with the golden glory, has been taken
generally to represent either a meteor or a bomb (the critics do
not know which), and a story has been invented that this picture
records the salvation of Conti at some siege of Foligno, in which
he is supposed to have taken part. But the town is not Foligno,
179
Possibly the arrangement of ‘ Assumptions ’ or ‘ Coronations of
the Virgin,’ which was familiar to Raphael from his earliest days
in the studio of Perugino, was responsible for the conception of
this picture, but the adaptation of the arrangement for another
purpose is the logical outcome of the whole tendency of Raphael’s
art.
It is not, of course, the case that the main elements of the
picture are merely flung upon the canvas with such hints to their
intellectual combination as a purely primitive altar-piece might
have presented, although here, as in the case of the Tapestries,
Raphael shows a distinct tendency to revert to a characteristic
feature of earlier art. Such frank conventionality would have
been impossible, both for acceptance by the general taste of the
day and for assimilation with the developed style of each of the
component parts. A theme of symbolic character, unusual in
Raphael, serves as a pictorial vehicle to convey the intellectual
association. Much no doubt is still effected, as it would have been
in a primitive picture, by the upturned gaze of all the four figures
and by the uplifted arm of St. John, which recalls, through the
figure at the altar in the ‘Disputa,’ a whole series of frigid Perugian
‘Assumptions.’ This is a mere relic of the convention which was
in general being disregarded, and it is largely responsible for the
imperfection of the effect. The true unifying idea in the picture
is the vast imaginative glory, half halo and half sun, which rises
behind the figure of the Madonna and casts its radiance throughout
the picture, including, even, as arch-shaped rays piercing through
the clouds, the landscape of wood and water and town, and
touching with its golden light the curls of the angel in the fore-
ground. A spot of orange-yellow in the landscape, which seems
somehow to be connected with the golden glory, has been taken
generally to represent either a meteor or a bomb (the critics do
not know which), and a story has been invented that this picture
records the salvation of Conti at some siege of Foligno, in which
he is supposed to have taken part. But the town is not Foligno,
179