Masterpieces in Colour

Raphael

Better than any other picture by Raphael, this important altar-piece shows the precociousness of Raphael's genius, for it was painted at Perugia in 1506, when the master had scarcely passed into the twenty-third year of his life. He had then just returned from Florence, but, probably to humour his patrons, the Ansidei family, he reverted in this picture once again to the formal manner of his second master, Perugino. The "Ansidei Madonna" has the distinction of being the most costly picture at the National Galleryit was purchased in 1885 from the Duke of Marlborough for 70,000. "And I tell you that to paint one beautiful woman, I should need to see several beautiful women, and to have you with me to choose the best," wrote Raphael, then at the zenith of his fame and good fortune, to his life-long friend Count Baldassare Castiglione, whothe10 ideal courtier himselfhas given the world that immortal monument of Renaissance culture, the Book of the Courtier. In penning these lines the prince of painters intended, perhaps, no more than a pretty compliment to one who was himself a model of courtesy and graceful speech, but the words would gain deep significance if picture were substituted for woman, and if Castiglione were taken to signify the personification of intellect and learning. For the beauty of Raphael's art, which in the course of four centuries has lost none of its hold upon the admiration of mankind, is distilled from the various elements of beauty contained in the art that had gone before him and was being created around him; and in choosing the best, at least as far as idea and conception are concerned, he was guided by the deepest thinkers and keenest intellects of what were then the world's greatest centres of culture. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 44033
Author: Konody, Paul G. (Paul George)
Release Date: Oct 25, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Hare, T. Leman (Thomas Leman), 1872-1935