School of Athens
Raphael. 1509-1511 C.E. Fresco
Raphael. 1509-1511 C.E. Fresco
Its pictorial concept, formal beauty and thematic unity were universally appreciated, by the Papal authorities and other artists, as well as patrons and art collectors. It ranks alongside Leonardo's Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and Michelangelo's Vatican frescoes, as the embodiment of Renaissance ideals of the early cinquecento.
Raphael's School of Athens
Detail of Plato (left) and Aristotle (right)
Detail of Pythagoras, amongst other philosophers known for studying the ethereal and theoretical, including Plato.
THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS
1. Date: 1509-1511
2. Medium: fresco (and preliminary sketches with charcoal powder)
3. Location: Stanza della Segnatura, the Vatican, Rome, Italy
BACKGROUND ON RAPHAEL
Raphael was born in Urbino, Italy, in 1483. He trained under his father, then the artist Pietro Perugino, in Florence. Raphael’s work was profoundly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, while he worked in Florence from 1504-1505. Raphael studied how they painted and sculpted the human body, its anatomy, and its movements. Around 1508, Raphael was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II, who was in the midst of commissioning tens of works from Italy’s most talented artists. Raphael first decorated the “Vatican Stanze,” the Pope’s apartments, where we see his famous School of Athens, followed by his Chigi Chapel and the Tapestry Cartoons of the Acts of the Apostles (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), his Madonna and Child, and his designs for the rebuilding of St Peter's. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Raphael is regarded as one of the three greatest artists of the High Renaissance, particularly in Italy.He never married, but in 1514 he was talked into being engaged to Maria Bibbiena by her uncle, Cardinal Medici Bibbiena. He had many affairs in addition to his engagement to Maria, most permanently with “La Fornerina,” or Margherita Luti, with whom, one night, he engaged in such excessive sex that he died of an acute illness two weeks later, on Good Friday. His death was compared to the death of a God, and his will left money to restore the Pantheon in Rome, where he requested to be buried. Raphael left a a lasting legacy and impression on artists for his frescoes, altarpieces, and cartoons’ balance and harmony. On his tomb in the Pantheon is written: "Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die.”
CONTEXT
This work was created during the High Renaissance in the Stanza della Sengatura in the Vatican in Rome. While Raphael was painting these frescoes, Michelangelo was a few blocks away painting the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Rome and Italy as a whole were still experiencing much cultural growth and prosperity, just years before the Protestant Reformation would shake the vitality of the Italian Renaissance and its artists. The Reformation brought about an uncertainty about salvation, and the means by which to reach it, which was reflected most notably in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel alter wall painting in the 1530s.
However, Raphael’s School of Athens were created just before the Reformation struck, and testify to greatness of pagan wisdom as well as the “vastness and variety” of the papal library. “The School of Athens” was originally titled “Philosophy” because the bookshelves under it were to hold Julius II’s collection of philosophy books.
The four walls in the Stanza della Segnatura showcase the four branches of human knowledge: Philosophy, Theology, Poetry, and Justice. On the ceiling, four allegorical figures represent these four branches. Raphael’s ceiling, which is modeled after Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, contains four allegorical figures representing the four branches of knowledge.
Religion, or theology, was seen as an [philosophy’s equal at this time, which is important to remember with the Protestant Reformation just around the corner.
Raphael drew his inspiration for the impressive architecture in his School of Athens from the surrounding Roman ruins, such as the Baths of Caracalla, and the Basilica of Manutius and Constantine. Furthermore, he executed many preliminary sketches on a smaller scale to perfect the details of his fresco. He first created a large drawing, called a cartoon, which was almost the size of the final work and was used as a wall mural. Next small pinholes were punched along the lines of the cartoon, which was hung on the wall where Raphael painted the work, and powdered charcoal was pushed through the holes to create an impression of the drawing. The charcoal lines helped Raphael to accurately execute the final fresco, especially because he had to paint such detail in such a short amount of time before the fresco dried.
Raphael’s frescoes were rediscovered, in a sense, when they were cleaned and restored in 1995.
CONTENT
All of the great thinkers and philosophers of antiquity are gathered here in this classical space, surrounded by Roman architecture. Plato and Aristotle are the central figures. The central vanishing point is the space just between them at hip level, and the viewer’s eye is drawn to them as they engage in discussion and stride forward towards the us.
Plato was actually Aristotle’s teacher; we can identify him by his book the Timaeus in his hand. Plato focused on the ethereal and theoretical, so he points upwards to the sky, and wears red and purple robes, which symbolize fire and air. On the other hand, Aristotle focused on the physical and observable, so he gestures towards the ground, and wears blue and brown robes, which symbolize water and earth.
On Plato’s side, the left side, there are the philosophers who focused on the theoretical, ethereal issues of philosophy. This includes Pythagoras, who believed in a reality that transcended reality. On the right side, Aristotle’s side, there are the philosophers, such as Euclid, who focused on the physical and concrete.
Euclid is modeled on Raphael’s friend Bramante, the architect who Pope Julius II commissioned to create a model for the new Saint Peter’s. Appropriately enough, Bramante’s design for the new Saint Peter’s was based on perfect geometry of squares and circles. The same is true of the architecture painted by Raphael; as we can see, he used coffered barrel vaults, pilasters.
On Plato’s side, there are classical sculptures of Apollo, god of Sun, Music, and poetry. On Aristotle’s home, we can see Athena, god of war and wisdom, the more human and practical affairs.
Raphael’s work opposed the Medieval idea of an authority passing down knowledge. He glorified the history and sharing of knowledge, and emphasized his subjects’ grace and wisdom. The patrons of the day would’ve understood and recognized all the figures in the work without their being labeled. The coffered ceiling, which uses the rules of perspective, is a tribute to man’s dominance over nature.
On the stairs is Diogenes, and writing on the tilted marble block is Heraclitus, writing quietly to himself. Heraclitus has Michelangelo’s features, who was known for his lonely and impersonable affect…so Raphael has appropriated the personas of some of these philosophers to include some aspects of his current surroundings. Heraclitus was added after Raphael had completed the frescoe.
Raphael stands to the right in a black cap, with some of the most important philosophers of antiquity, including Ptolemy and Zoroaster. Having departed from the Medieval perception of artists as mere craftsmen, Raphael includes himself as a skilled and capable intellectual.
FORM
The figure in the foreground of School of Athens is writing on a marble block that’s tilted at an angle towards the viewer. Because of this angle, it can’t depend on the central vanishing point, which was determined using one-point perspective. Therefore, Raphael added a left vanishing point and a right vanishing point, both on the same Horizon line with the central point (which follows the rules of perspective.) The writing block is the only object in the composition that uses these two vanishing points, because the viewer is not perpendicular or parallel to it. All of the other figures and objects rely on one of the two perspective points.
Also, Raphael groups people on the left and right, leaving the middle space relatively empty. This serves to balance the linear perspective at the bottom of the painting to balance the sharp orthogonals at the top of the painting.
Just as in da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Raphael divided the figures into groups, but they are individual, and move fluidly amongst one another.
The architecture uses linear perspective, most visibly in the orthogonals in the pavement and in the receding cornices (moulding around the wall of a room just below the ceiling.)
Lastly, Raphael used Greek models for calculating the proportions, which were later adopted by the Romans and then Renaissance humanists.
FUNCTION
The four frescoes Raphael created for Pope Julius’s Stanza della Segnatura, or library, were arranged to represent the classical topic of the books on the shelves below.
Raphael demonstrated Renaissance perfection on a massive scale, and his work reminds us of the harmonious proportions and idealized figures of antiquity.
His School of Athens is also a tribute to the wisdom of the ancient philosophers, and a prayer that their knowledge will pass onto the holy Pope, and the artists and citizens of Italy.
