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 RAPHAEL

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RAPHAEL

otherwise. It is curious that Raphael made the purest profession of faith in ideahsm with regard to this figure of a woman which arouses all the veneres cupidinesque. of painting. "With regard to the 'Galatea'" he writes to his friend Castiglione, "I should consider myself a great master if it had only half the merits of which you WTite. I know that to paint a beautiful woman I should see several and should have you also to assist me in my choice. But as I have few good judges or good models I work ac- cording to a certain idea which presents itself to my mind. If this idea possesses any perfection I do not know it, though this is what I endeavour to attain." Plato might recognize himself in these exquisite lines, or they might be a recovered frag- ment of the "Ion" or "Phaedrus".

The "History of Psyche" on the ceiling of the large gallery was painted in 151S when Raphael, over- burdened with work, had no leisure and confided to his pupils, chiefly to Giulio Romano, the task of executing his sketches and designs. His original sketches are mar\-els, and the composition of the frescoes, despite their rather hea\'j' and ^allga^ colouring, is calculated to charm an artist's eye. With his spiritually inclined imagination Raphael feigns that the loggia opening on the garden is a large trellis, an arched and vine-covered pergola through which appear in mid-heaven the winged whiteness of the goddesses. Two or three figures fill these azure triangles. These ideal and floating figures are a verj- festival. But the middle of the pergola is covered with a velum formed by a double tapestry which depicts in two scenes the "Entrance of Psyche to Olympus" and the "Marriage of Psyche". Giulio Romano's coarse execution and the still more re- grettable retouching of Maratta could not wholly dishonour these incomparable works.

Pictures and porlraiis of the Roman period. — To- gether with these vast decorative \\ork.s Raphael con- tinued to produce as though for pastime works of small size but great importance, for they are the sole means whereby his art could be known outside of Italy, and Raphael become more than a name to the great European public. Moreover, there are many masterpieces among these works of small compass. The Madoimas of the beginning of the Roman period still retain somewhat of the relative timidity of the preceding period. The lovely little "Mrgin of the Casa Alba" (St. Petersburg, 1510), the Leonardo-like "Madonna Aldobrandini " (National Gallery), the charming "Madonna of the Veil" of the Louvre (1510), still preserve a remnant of the Florentine grace and simplicity. The "FoUgno Miidonna", painted in 1511 for Sigismundo Conti after the Camera delta Scgnalura, marks the transition to a new manner. The graceful figure of the ^'irgin seated amid clouds on a sunht tlirone with her Child in her arms recalls the celestial figures of the "Disputa"; the three saints and the donor kneeling below on the earth before the beautiful landscape, the Child with a cartel on which was formerly written the ex-voto, show brilliant and scholarly painting, but perhaps too evi- dent symmetry. The "Virgin of the Fish" (Madrid, 1513), the "Virgin of the Candlesticks" (London, 1514), the "Virgin of the Curtain" (Madonna delta Impannala, Pitti, 1514) are unfortunately among his pupils' works. There is a coldness, a lack of the artist's jiersonal qualities and peculiar sensibility, which chills works otherwise charming in conception. Execution is a part of art which seems material but which is in reality quite spiritual; through it the artist betrays his emotion, gives us his confidence, and communicates his impressions. The work of an- other hand always lacks the most valuable Qualities of .style. Raphael wa.s therefore not sufficiently care- ful of his reputation when he confided his most original inspirations to his pupils, for they lost in being ex-

pressed by others. The division of labour which has but few inconveniences in decorative works becomes fatal in works of a "lyric" or familiar nature, and which are only valuable in so far as the artist endows them with his personality. It is this which injures or spoils irreparably some of his most famous works, such as the "Spasimo" of Madrid, the "Madonna of the Rose" (or "La Perla") of the same museum, the "8t. Michael" of the Louvre, and the "Holy Family" kno^\Ti as that of Francis I (all these belong to the years 1516-18). A thought of Raphael's translated even by such a master as Giulio Romano or Francesco Penni has nevertheless only the value of a shadow or a copy. Translation in such a case too often means betrayal.

Some works of this period are nevertheless by the artist himself and are rightly numbered among his most popular works. The "Madonna of the Chair" (Pitti Palace) is perhaps the best liked by women. No other links so happily the familiar charm of the Florentine period with the maturity of the Roman period. She is only a peasant in the costume of a contadina with the national kerchief on her hair, but Raphael never found in such simple materials a more profound and natural combination of forms, such curving lines, such an ex-pressive, enfolding arabesque. The whole of maternal love seems to be enclosed within the perfect circle of this picture. It is the perfection of genre pictures, wherein the most ordinarj- human life reaches its noblest expression, a universal beauty. Art has lived for four centuries on this sublime idea. Though from Giulio Romano to Ingres it has been imitated a thousand times, no one has discovered the secret of its perfection. Among tableaux dc grace must be mentioned together with the little "Vision of Ezechiel" of the Pitti Palace, the splendid picture of St. Cecilia of Bologna (1515). This canvas, as well as its contemporaries the "Madonna of the Chair" and the "Sistine Madonna", coincides ■s\"ith the ap- pearance of a new model whose portrait we have in the famous "Donna Velata" of the Pitti Palace. It was she who posed for the St. Cecilia as for the Dres- den picture. These two pictures, especially the second, occupy a place apart in Raphael's works. Here the artist directly attempts the expression of the super- natural. The Dresden picture is the most beautiful devotional picture in existence. The impression is obtained not only by the idealism of its form, but by the vision-like representation of space, by the scheme of clouds on which the Virgin is upheld, and the solemnity of the draperj'. -An almost forbidding mystery fills this majestic canvas, truly untqualled in Raphael's work. It would perhaps have had a com- panion had death not interrupted the "Transfigura- tion" (Vatican Gallery, 1520). The upper part, which is all Raphael had time to complete, is one of his highest inspirations. In uniting this "glory" with the earthly and agitated scene below, he was confronted with a problem which it required all his genius to solve. The devotion of his pupils, who assumed the task of com- pleting this well-nigh unrealizable task, produced only a cold and confused work.

This is why we often prefer Raphael's portraits, which the taste of those days neglected, to his most talked-of works, his most famous Virgins. It is now the fiushion to praise the portrait painter at the ex- pense of the painter of the Madonnas and even of the decorator. It is truly said that in the first two Cham- bers the beauty of the portraits adds much to the life of the whole. Later, starting with the Chamber of the Incendio, Raphael, doubtless following Michelangelo's example, ceased to introduce portraits into his his- torical works; he no longer represented individuals, but only the general species. Ne\'ertheless he con- tinued to paint portraits and even here, though he has equals, no one excels him. The half-dozen portraits he has left, the Julius II of the.Uffizi, the Leo X of the