Have you ever heard of the ‘Sistine Madonna’? This is just one of
the many in the popular series of the ‘Madonna’ pieces of (oil) paintings
executed by the leading light of Italian High Renaissance Classicism. It was
indeed his last work in the series which he completed around 1514. The Madonna
(and child) series simply depict a portrait of the Virgin Mary with the infant
Jesus. Well, for me this is the first image I have in my mind that calls up the
fantastic artistic persona that is simply referred to as Raphael. Raphael was
among the foremost figures of the Renaissance period that blossomed in Europe
and centred mainly on Italy.
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| Self portrait by Raphael |
Raphael, born Raffaello Sanzio was
an infant genius of some sort. He was born on April 6, 1483, in Urbino, Italy.
He was apprenticed to Perugino in 1504. He was a prominent personality of the
Italian High Renaissance Classicism. At the tender age of eleven when his
father died, Raphael took over the management of his father’s (Giovanni Santi – a
painter for the Duke of Urbino) studio. Even as a teenager he did not waste
time in surpassing his father’s accomplishments and started to attract huge
commissions as he was already the most important painter around. Some of the
big official commissions the very young Raphael garnered included paintings for the Church of San Nicola in the neighbouring town of Castello.
Later in the same year 1504, Raphael left his
apprenticeship career under his master Perugino and went to Florence. There he
was exposed to the numerous and ambitious works of great Italian master
painters who had come before him such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolommeo, and Masaccio.
Raphael grew up learning and working
tirelessly, and in no time became an accomplished and celebrated Painter and Architect.
He did a series of ‘Madonnas’ one of which is The Sistine Madonna, and executed also a number of frescoes when he
moved to live in Rome. He thus decorated parts of the vatican (room) ‘Stanze’
with great compositions including the ones he called The Triumph of Religion and The
School of Athens at the instance of Pope Julius II.
