Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/418

 388 Painting and chronicler, Giorgio Vasari (bef. 1512 — 1574), whose ' Lives of the most excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects ! has gone through many editions, and is world- known. (d) Raphael and his School. RafFaello Sanzio, usually called Kaphael (1483 — 1520), is generally considered to be the greatest of all painters. He was born at Urbino : his father, Giovanni Santi (ab. 1440 — 1494), was an Umbrian painter of some note, whose title to fame has been eclipsed by that of his famous son ; and the young painter's earliest works were exponents of the peculiar style of the Umbrian School in its highest development. The pupih of Perugino, he was at first greatly influenced by that master ; and in speaking of his works we shall have to distinguish between three distinct styles — known as the Perugino manner, the Florentine and the Roman — adopted at the three different periods of his life. Raphael, like the other master-spirits of his age, was a universal genius ; he excelled alike in architecture, sculpture and painting, and was endowed with every quality which could endear him to his associates. No man inspired such universal confidence and affection, and no artist has exercised so wide and lasting an influence upon art as Raphael, by whose spirit we are even now met at every turn in every branch of art. What strikes us principally in our study of his character is the combination of the highest qualities of the mind and heart — a combina- tion rarely met with even in the greatest men, and perhaps never to so full an extent as in him and in the great musician Mozart, who may well be called a kindred spirit, though working in a different sphere. In the works of