Page:Woman in Art.djvu/74

WOMAN IN ART the preceding decade, making a galaxy of at least sixty prominent art workers to enrich the century plus the older men whose working years belong to it also.

The brilliant minds of the first magnitude were born within the first decade of the last quarter of the century, and within eight years eight of the most renowned painters of the world came to the uplift of art. Of this group of young men, two were commissioned to work out their art salvation in Rome at the same time. They were the oldest and youngest of the group.

Michael Angelo had several years the start in Rome; the younger, Raphael Santi, so greatly admired the work of the senior artist, that at one time he was in danger of losing his own originality, but a timely order from the pope saved him and his art, and the "Stanza Segnatura" represents Raphael in the full maturity of his manhood and his art.

Easel pictures were rare in those days; wall paintings were the glory of the Vatican, of Rome, of the world, and to this day the works of Raphael add laurels to his fame.

We are considering the decorative in his art at the moment, for such was his order from Julius II. His decorations for the walls, or murals, are masterpieces portraying the idealized subjectives of theology, philosophy, poetry, and jurisprudence—the sciences by which man struggles to appreciate divine truth.

In the world of art Raphael's frescoes are symbolic, corresponding to the allegory in literature; the highest form of decoration.

Raphael's work requires a volume, but in connection with our subject we pass on to the Farnesina Palace, on whose walls the Umbrian master depicted the fable of Cupid and Psyche. The fable, so inwrought with human experience, so applicably and naturally attributed to the invisible subjects, is most delicately and artistically portrayed on the pendentives and lunettes of the ceiling. Raphael made all the designs for the thirty pictures, and the exquisite borders and medallions enwreathed with arabesques, birds, and flowers; but in the actual painting he was assisted by a number of his pupils. There is a group, however, of three graces, one of which is entirely the work of Raphael, and one of his contemporaries declared, "This one figure, with its masterly drawing, refined execution, and exquisite coloring, is enough to redeem the whole, and serves to mark the preeminence of the master over the best of his pupils."

The voices of conscience and curiosity are most delicately made to represent the ethereal, the invisible, by female figures grouped back of Psyche; and at the flight of Cupid one almost hears the parting thrust to the prostrate Psyche, "Love cannot dwell with suspicion." With real appreciation for the beauty and 54