_Raphael_ (Urbino: 1483-1520). _See_ 1171.
This is a picture of Raphael's second period--"painted about
the year 1507, to judge from its close resemblance in style
to the celebrated picture of the Entombment in the Borghese
(Rome), which is known to have been executed at that time."
There are several studies for the picture in the University
Galleries at Oxford, and another in the Chatsworth collection.
The finished cartoon in black and white chalk, pricked for
transfer to the panel, is exhibited in the Louvre.
A perfect picture of saintly resignation. St. Catherine (for whose
story see 693) leans on the wheel, the instrument of her martyrdom,
and "looks up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips
parted in the resting from her pain." Her right hand is pressed on her
bosom, as if she replied to the call from above, "I am here, O Lord!
ready to do Thy will." From above, a bright ray is seen streaming
down upon her, emblematic of the divine inspiration which enabled
her to confound her heathen adversaries. The studies existing show
the pains Raphael took with the exquisite expression; but the result
defies analysis. "It is impossible to explain in language the exact
qualities of the lines on which depend the whole truth and beauty of
expression about the half-opened lips of Raphael's St. Catherine." But
these lines should be noticed as exemplifying the principle of "vital
beauty"--of beauty, that is to say, as consisting in the appearance
in living things of felicitous fulfilment of function. Thus eyes and
mouths become more beautiful precisely as they become more perfect
means of moral expression. The mouth of a negro is ugly because it is
only a means of eating; the mouth of St. Catherine is beautiful for the
feeling it expresses (_Modern Painters_, vol. i. pt. ii. sec. i. ch.
vii. § 47; vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. i. ch. xii. § 10, sec. ii. ch. v. §
21). It may be noticed, lastly, how much the pathetic feeling of the
picture is heightened by the herbage in the foreground, and especially
perhaps by the carefully-painted dandelion "clock": "so soon passeth it
away, and we are gone."