gratify the wishes of many private individuals, who were desirous of
having his designs for buildings, in which branch of art he was highly
celebrated, and also of possessing his pictures. I need only to refer to
the gallery of Agostini Chigi, which he ornamented with his own hand,
with the well known fable of Galatea. He afterwards, with the assistance
of his pupils, painted the Marriage of Psyche, at the banquet of which
he assembled all the heathen deities, with such propriety of form, with
their attendant symbols and genii, that in these fabulous subjects he
almost rivalled the Greeks. These pictures, and those also of the
chambers of the Vatican, were retouched by Maratta, with incredible
care; and the method he adopted, as described by Bellori, may serve as a
guide in similar cases. Raffaello also painted many altarpieces, with
saints generally introduced; as that Delle Contesse at Foligno, where he
introduced the Chamberlain of the Pope, alive, rather than drawn from
the life: that for S. Giovanni in Monte, at Bologna, of S. Cecilia, who,
charmed to rapture by a celestial melody, forgets her musical
instrument, which falls neglected from her hands; that for Palermo, of
Christ ascending Mount Calvary, called _dello Spasimo_, which, however
much disparaged by Cumberland, for having been retouched, is a noble
ornament of the royal collection at Madrid; and the others at Naples and
at Piacenza, which are mentioned by his biographers. He also painted S.
Michael for the King of France, and many other holy families[46] and
devotional subjects, which neither Vasari nor his other biographers have
fully enumerated.
But although the creation of these wonderful works was become a habit in
this great artist, still every part of his productions cannot be
considered as equally successful. It is known, that in the frescos of
the palace, and in the Chigi gallery, he was censured in some naked
figures for errors committed, as Vasari says, by some of his school.
Mengs, who varied his opinions at different periods of his life,
insinuates, that Raffaello for some time seemed to slumber, and did not
make those rapid strides in the art, which might have been expected from
his genius. This was, probably, when Michelangiolo was for some years
absent from Rome. But when he returned, and heard it reported that many
persons considered the paintings of Raffaello superior to his in colour,
of more beauty and grace in composition, and of a correspondent
excellence in design, whilst his works were said to possess none of
these qualities except the last; he was stimulated to avail himself of
the pencil of Fra Sebastiano, and at the same time supplied him with his
own designs. The most celebrated work which they produced in
conjunction, was a Transfiguration, in fresco, with a Flagellation, and
other figures, in a chapel of S. Peter in Montorio. Raffaello being
subsequently employed to paint a picture for the Cardinal Giulio de'
Medici, afterwards Clement VII., Sebastiano, in a sort of competition,
painted another picture of the same size. In the latter was represented
the raising of Lazarus; in the former, with the master's accustomed
spirit of emulation, the Transfiguration. "This is a picture which
combines," says Mengs, "more excellences than any of the previous works
of Raffaello. The expression in it is more exalted and more refined, the
chiaroscuro more correct, the perspective better understood, the
penciling finer, and there is a greater variety in the drapery, more
grace in the heads, and more grandeur in the style."[47] It represents
the mystery of the Transfiguration of Christ on the summit of Mount
Tabor. On the side of the hill he has placed a band of his disciples,
and with the happiest invention has engaged them in an action
conformable to their powers, and has thus formed an episode not beyond
the bounds of probability. A youth possessed is presented to them, that
they may expel the evil spirit that torments him; and in the possessed,
struggling with the presence of the demon, the confiding faith of the
father, the affliction of a beautiful and interesting female, and the
compassion visible in the countenances of the surrounding apostles, we
are presented with perhaps the most pathetic incident ever conceived.
Yet this part of the composition does not fix our regard so much as the
principal subject on the summit of the mountain. There the two prophets,
and the three disciples, are most admirably delineated, and the Saviour
appears enveloped in a glory emanating from the fountain of eternal
light, and surrounded by that chaste and celestial radiance, that is
reserved exclusively for the eyes of the elect. The countenance of
Christ, in which he has developed all his combined ideas of majesty and
beauty, may be considered the masterpiece of Raffaello, and seems to us
the most sublime height to which the genius of the artist, or even the
art itself, was capable of aspiring. After this effort he never resumed
his pencil, as he was soon afterwards suddenly seized with a mortal
distemper, of which he died, in the bosom of the church, on Good Friday,
(also the anniversary of his birthday,) 1520, aged thirty-seven years.
His body reposed for some days in the chamber where he was accustomed to
paint, and over it was placed this noble picture of the Transfiguration,
previous to his mortal remains being transferred to the church of the
Rotonda for interment. There was not an artist that was not moved to
tears at this affecting sight. Raffaello had always possessed the power
of engaging the affections of all with whom he was acquainted.
Respectful to his master, he obtained from the Pope an assurance that
his works, in one of the ceilings of the Vatican, should remain
unmolested; just towards his rivals, he expressed his gratitude to God
that he had been born in the days of Bonarruoti; gracious towards his
pupils, he loved them, and intrusted them as his own sons; courteous
even to strangers, he cheerfully lent his aid to all who asked his
advice; and in order to make designs for others, or to direct them in
their studies, he sometimes even neglected his own work, being alike
incapable of refusing or delaying his inestimable aid. All these
reflections forced themselves on the minds of the spectators, whose eyes
were at one moment directed to the view of his youthful remains, and of
those divine hands that had, in the imitation of her works, almost
excelled nature herself; and at another moment, to the contemplation of
this his latest production, which appeared to exhibit the dawn of a new
and wonderful style; and the painful reflection presented itself, that,
with the life of Raffaello, the brightest prospects of art were thus
suddenly obscured. The Pope himself was deeply affected at his death,
and requested Bembo to compose the epitaph which is now read on his
tomb; and his loss was considered as a national calamity throughout all
Italy. True indeed it is, that soon after his decease, Rome herself, and
her territory, experienced such unheard of calamities, that many had
just cause to envy him, not only the celebrity of his life, but the
opportune period of his death. He was not doomed to see the illustrious
Leo X., at a time when he extended the most exalted patronage to the
arts, poisoned by a sacrilegious hand; nor Clement VII., pressed by an
enraged enemy, seeking shelter in the Castle of S. Angelo, afterwards
compelled to fly for his life, and obliged to purchase, at enormous
sums, the liberty of his servants. Nor did he witness the horrors
attending the sacking of Rome, the nobility robbed and plundered in
their own palaces, the violation of hapless females in the convents;
prelates unrelentingly dragged to the scaffold, and priests torn from
the altars, and from the images of their saints, to whom they looked in
vain for refuge, slaughtered by the sword, and their bodies thrown out
of the churches a prey to the dogs. Nor did he survive to see that city,
which he had so illustrated by his genius, and where he had for so many
years shared the public admiration and esteem, wasted with fire and
sword. But of this we shall speak in another place, and shall here
adduce some observations on his style, selected from various authors,
and more particularly from Mengs, who has ably criticised it in his
works already enumerated by me, as well as in some others.
Raffaello is by common consent placed at the head of his art; not
because he excelled all others in every department of painting, but
because no other artist has ever possessed the various parts of the art
united in so high a degree. Lazzarini even asserts, that he was guilty
of errors, and that he is only the first, because he did not commit so
many as others. He ought, however, to have allowed, that his defects
would be excellences in any other artist, being nothing more in him than
the neglect of that higher degree of perfection to which he was capable
of attaining. The art, indeed, comprehends so many and such difficult
parts, that no individual artist has been alike distinguished in all;
even Apelles was said to yield to Amphion in disposition and harmony, to
Asclepiadorus in proportion, and to Protogenes in application.
The style of design of Raffaello, as seen in those drawings, divested of
colours, which now form the chief ornaments of cabinets, presents us, if
we may use the term, with the pure transcript of his imagination, and we
stand in amaze at the contours, grace, precision, diligence, and genius,
which they exhibit. One of the most admired of his drawings I once saw
in the gallery of the Duke of Modena, a most finished and superior
specimen, uniting in style all the invention of the best painters of
Greece, and the execution of the first artists of Italy. It has been
made a question whether Raffaello did not yield to Michelangiolo in
drawing; and Mengs himself confesses, that he did, as far as regards the
anatomy of the muscles, and in strong expression, in which he considers
Raffaello to have imitated Michelangiolo. But we need not say with
Vasari, that in order to prove that he understood the naked figure as
well as Michelangiolo, he appropriated to himself the designs of that
great master. On the contrary, in the figures of the two youths in the
Incendio di Borgo, criticised by Vasari, one of whom is in the act of
leaping from a wall to escape the flames, and the other is fleeing with
his father on his shoulders, he not only proved that he had a perfect
knowledge of the action of the muscles and the anatomy requisite for a
painter, but prescribed the occasion when this style might be used
without impropriety, as in figures of a robust form engaged in violent
action. He moreover commonly marked the principal parts in the naked
figure, and indicated the others after the example of the better ancient
masters, and where he wrought from his own ideas, his execution was most
correct. On this subject Bellori may be consulted at page 223 of the
work already quoted, and the annotations to vol. ii. of Mengs, (page
197,) made by the Cavaliere d'Azzara, minister of the king of Spain at
Rome, an individual, who, in conferring honour on the artist, has by his
own writing conferred honour on art itself.
In chasteness of design, Raffaello was by some placed on a level with
the Greeks, though this praise we must consider as extravagant. Agostino
Caracci commends him as a model of symmetry; and in that respect, more
than in any other, he approached the ancients; except, observes Mengs,
in the hands, which being rarely found perfect in the ancient statues,
he had not an equal opportunity of studying, and did not therefore
design them so elegantly as the other parts. He selected the beautiful
from nature, and as Mariette observes, whose collection was rich in his
designs, he copied it with all its imperfections, which he afterwards
gradually corrected, as he proceeded with his work. Above all things, he
aimed at perfecting the heads, and from a letter addressed to
Castiglione on the Galatea of the Palazzo Chigi, or of the Farnesina, he
discovers how intent he was to select the best models of nature, and to
perfect them in his own mind.[48] His own Fornarina assisted him in this
object. Her portrait, by Raffaello's own hand, was formerly in the
Barberini palace, and it is repeated in many of his Madonnas, in the
picture of S. Cecilia, in Bologna, and in many female heads. Critics
have often expressed a wish that these heads had possessed a more
dignified character, and in this respect he was, perhaps, excelled by
Guido Reni, and however engaging his children may be, those of Titian
are still more beautiful. His true empire was in the heads of his men,
which are portraits selected with judgment, and depicted with a dignity
proportioned to his subject. Vasari calls the air of these heads
superhuman, and calls on us to admire the expression of age in the
patriarchs, simplicity of life in the apostles, and constancy of faith
in the martyrs; and in Christ in the Transfiguration, he says, there is
a portion of the divine essence itself transferred to his countenance,
and made visible to mortal eyes.
This effect is the result of that quality that is called expression, and
which, in the drawing of Raffaello has attracted more admiration of late
years than formerly. It is remarkable, that not only Zuccaro, who was
indeed a superficial writer, but that Vasari, and Lomazzo himself, so
much more profound than either of them, should not have conferred on him
that praise which he afterwards received from Algarotti, Lazzarini, and
Mengs. Lionardo was the first, as we shall see in the Milanese School,
to lead the way to delicacy of expression; but that master, who painted
so little, and with such labour, is not to be compared to Raffaello, who
possessed the whole quality in its fullest extent. There is not a
movement of the soul, there is not a character of passion known to the
ancients, and capable of being expressed by art, that he has not caught,
expressed, and varied, in a thousand different ways, and always within
the bounds of propriety. We have no tradition of his having, like Da
Vinci, frequented the public streets to seek for subjects for his
pencil; and his numerous pictures prove that he could not have devoted
so much time to this study, while his drawings clearly evince, that he
had not equal occasion for such assistance. Nature, as I have before
remarked, had endowed him with an imagination which transported his mind
to the scene of the event, either fabulous or remote, in which he was
engaged, and awoke in him the very same emotions which the subjects of
such story must themselves have experienced; and this vivid conception
assisted him until he had designed his subject with that distinctness
which he had either observed in other countenances, or found in his own
mind. This faculty, seldom found in poets, and still more rarely in
painters, no one possessed in a more eminent degree than Raffaello. His
figures are passions personified; and love, fear, hope, and desire,
anger, placability, humility, or pride, assume their places by turns, as
the subject changes; and while the spectator regards the countenances,
the air, and the gestures of his figures, he forgets that they are the
work of art, and is surprised to find his own feelings excited, and
himself an actor in the scene before him. There is another delicacy of
expression, and this is the gradation of the passions, by which every
one perceives whether they are in their commencement or at their height,
or in their decline. He had observed their shades of difference in the
intercourse of life, and on every occasion he knew how to transfer the
result of his observations to his canvas. Even his silence is eloquent,
and every actor
"Il cor negli occhi, e nella fronte ha scritto:"
the smallest perceptible motion of the eyes, of the nostrils, of the
mouth, and of the fingers, corresponds to the chief movements of every
passion; the most animated and vivid actions discover the violence of
the passion that excites them; and what is more, they vary in
innumerable degrees, without ever departing from nature, and conform
themselves to a diversity of character without ever risking propriety.
His heroes possess the mien of valour; his vulgar, an air of debasement;
and that, which neither the pen nor the tongue could describe, the
genius and art of Raffaello would delineate with a few strokes of the
pencil. Numbers have in vain sought to imitate him; his figures are
governed by a sentiment of the mind, while those of others, if we except
Poussin and a very few more, seem the imitation of tragic actors from
the scenes. This is Raffaello's chief excellence; and he may justly be
denominated the painter of mind. If in this faculty be included all that
is difficult, philosophical, and sublime, who shall compete with him in
the sovereignty of art?
Another quality which Raffaello possessed in an eminent degree was
grace, a quality which may be said to confer an additional charm on
beauty itself. Apelles, who was supremely endowed with it among the
ancients, was so vain of the possession that he preferred it to every
other attribute of art.[49] Raffaello rivalled him among the moderns,
and thence obtained the name of the new Apelles. Something might,
perhaps, be advantageously added to the forms of his children, and other
delicate figures which he represented, but nothing can add to their
gracefulness, for if it were attempted to be carried further it would
degenerate into affectation, as we find in Parmegiano. His Madonnas
enchant us, as Mengs observes, not because they possess the perfect
lineaments of the Medicean Venus, or of the celebrated daughter of
Niobe; but because the painter in their portraits and in their
expressive smiles, has personified modesty, maternal love, purity of
mind, and, in a word, grace itself. Nor did he impress this quality on
the countenance alone, but distributed it throughout the figure in its
attitude, gesture, and action, and in the folds of the drapery, with a
dexterity which may be admired, but can never be rivalled. His freedom
of execution was a component part of this grace, which indeed vanishes
as soon as labour and study appear; for it is with the painter as with
the orator, in whom a natural and spontaneous eloquence delights us,
while we turn away with indifference from an artificial and studied
harangue.
In regard to the province of colour, Raffaello must yield the palm to
Titian and Correggio, although he himself excelled Michelangiolo and
many others. His frescos may rank with the first works of other schools
in that line: not so his pictures in oil. In the latter he availed
himself of the sketches of Giulio, which were composed with a degree of
hardness and timidity; and though finished by Raffaello, they have
frequently lost the lustre of his last touch. This defect was not
immediately apparent, and if Raffaello's life had been prolonged, he
would have been aware of the injuries his pictures received from the
lapse of time, and would not have finished them in so light a manner. He
is on this account more admired in his first subject in the Vatican,
painted under Julius II., than in those he executed under Leo X., for
being there pressed by a multiplicity of business, and an idea of the
importance of a grander style, he became less rich and firm in his
colouring. That, however, he excelled in these respects is evinced by
his portraits, when not having an opportunity of displaying his
invention, composition, and beautiful style of design, he appears
ambitious to distinguish himself by his colouring. In this respect his
two portraits of Julius II. are truly admirable, the Medicean and the
Corsinian: that of Leo X. between the two cardinals; and above all, in
the opinion of an eminent judge, Renfesthein, that of Bindo Altoviti, in
the possession of his noble descendants at Florence, by many regarded as
a portrait of Raphael himself.[50] The heads in his Transfiguration are
esteemed the most perfect he ever painted, and Mengs extols the
colouring of them as eminently beautiful. If there be any exception, it
is in the complexion of the principal female, of a greyish tint, as is
often the case in his delicate figures; in which he is therefore
considered to excel less than in the heads of his men. Mengs has made
many exceptions to the chiaroscuro of Raffaello, as compared with that
of Correggio, on which connoisseurs will form their own decision. We are
told that he disposed it with the aid of models of wax; and the relief
of his pictures, and the beautiful effect in his Heliodorus, and in the
Transfiguration, are ascribed to this mode of practice. To his
perspective, too, he was most attentive. De Piles found, in some of his
sketches, the scale of proportion.[51] It is affirmed by Algarotti, that
he did not attempt to paint _di sotto in su_. But to this opinion we may
oppose the example we find in the third arch of the gallery of the
Vatican, where there is a perspective of small columns, says Taja,
imitated _di sotto in su_. It is true, that in his larger works he
avoided it; and in order to preserve the appearance of nature, he
represented his pictures as painted on a tapestry, attached by means of
a running knot to the entablature of the room.
But all the great qualities which we have enumerated, would not have
procured for Raffaello such an extraordinary celebrity, if he had not
possessed a wonderful felicity in the invention and disposition of his
subjects, and this circumstance is, indeed, his highest merit. It may
with truth be said, that in aid of this object he availed himself of
every example, ancient and modern; and that these two requisites have
not since been so united in any other artist. He accomplishes in his
pictures that which every orator ought to aim at in his speech--he
instructs, moves, and delights us. This is an easy task to a narrator,
since he can regularly unfold to us the whole progress of an event. The
painter, on the contrary, has but the space of a moment to make himself
understood, and his talent consists in describing not only what is
passing, and what is likely to ensue, but that which has already
occurred. It is here that the genius of Raffaello triumphs. He embraces
the whole subject. From a thousand circumstances he selects those alone
which can interest us; he arranges the actors in the most expressive
manner; he invents the most novel modes of conveying much meaning by a
few touches; and numberless minute circumstances, all uniting in one
purpose, render the story not only intelligible, but palpable. Various
writers have adduced in example the S. Paul at Lystra, which is to be
seen in one of the tapestries of the Vatican. The artist has there
represented the sacrifice prepared for him and S. Barnabas his
companion, as to two gods, for having restored a lame man to the use of
his limbs. The altar, the attendants, the victims, the musicians, and
the axe, sufficiently indicate the intentions of the Lystrians. S. Paul,
who is in the act of tearing his robe, shews that he rejects and abhors
the sacrilegious honours, and is endeavouring to dissuade the populace
from persisting in them. But all this were vain, if it had not indicated
the miracle which had just happened, and which had given rise to the
event. Raffaello added to the group the lame man restored to the use of
his limbs, now easily recognized again by all the spectators. He stands
before the apostles rejoicing in his restoration; and raises his hands
in transport towards his benefactors, while at his feet lie the crutches
which had recently supported him, now cast away as useless. This had
been sufficient for any other artist; but Raffaello, who wished to carry
reality to the utmost point, has added a throng of people, who, in their
eager curiosity, remove the garment of the man, to behold his limbs
restored to their former state. Raffaello abounds with examples like
these, and he may be compared to some of the classical writers, who
afford the more matter for reflection the more they are studied. It is
sufficient to have noticed in the inventive powers of Raffaello, those
circumstances which have been less frequently remarked; the movement of
the passions, which is entirely the work of expression, the delight
which proceeds from poetical conceptions, or from graceful episodes, may
be said to speak for themselves, nor have any occasion to be pointed out
by us.