The Raphael Cartoons [antikvár]

THE RAPHAEL CARTOONS Painled in 1515 and 1516 by Raphael (1483-1520) The seven Cartoons by Raphael which are exhibited in this Court are among the most important surviving examples of Italian Renaissance art. The Renaissance, literally 'rebirth', refers to the rediscovery, in Italy, and new appreciation of the art of the ancient world of Greece and Rome. The aspect of ancient art which had most itifluence on the modern artist was Román sculpture. Hence the painting which was based upon the antique emphasises the sculptural qualities of the humán form; it alsó aims at the greatest possible degree of visual illusion and the conveyance of humán emotion through facial expression and bodily posture. Although the first impact of the new ideas was felt in Florence and Siena, the creative leadership in Italian art had shifted to Rome by 1500, attracted there by the wealth of the Popes, and their ambitious patronage, wliich impelled them to seek out the finest artists from all other Italian centres. Raphael had reached Rome by 1509 and worked there till his early death at the age of 37 in 1520. In his mature painting may be seen the most balanced expression of the current ambitions of Italian painters, and the Cartoons shown here belong to the most developed phase of his art. They were produced in 1515 and 1516. The concentration which he brought to them is the more remarkable because at the time he was still engaged in painting the frescoes in the Vatican, a commission which called forth, in such works as The School of Athens, Parnassus and The Liberation of St. Peter, somé of the world's most famous and justly admired paintings. With Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael is one of the three great artists of the High Renaissance, the culminating point of the entire movement. Nowadays the word 'cartoon' signifies a humorous drawing. But at the time at which the Raphael Cartoons were painted its meaning was quite different. The word is derived from cartone, the Italian for a large sheet of paper, and had acquired the specialised meaning of a full-scale design for a painting or a work in a difTerent material. Thus the drawing The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist by Leonardo in the National Gallery is a cartoon for an unexecuted oil painting. The Raphael Cartoons are designs for tapestries which were woven to be hung in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope's own Chapel in the Vatican in Rome. In the nineteenth century there was a competition for designs for frescoes in the new Houses of Parliament. Punch parodied these rather solemn historical productions with 'cartoons' of his own; and ever since then the word has possessed the new meaning.