Figure 1. Portrait of Johann Mayrhofer by Moritz von Schwind.
By setting the dialogue after its two characters have visited the art collections of Vienna’s Belvedere Palace, Mayrhofer not only provides local color but also takes advantage of one more opportunity to express loyalty and gratitude to the Austrian throne—in addition to the concerns of state, the authorities are also interested in sharing great art with their subjects. The idyllic setting, as the friends watch the sun set over the city, also provides the opportunity to turn the reader’s attention to both the sensual and the creative: the curious Willibald’s evocation of the colorful scene is answered by Friedrich’s hope to “speak well—so that nature, which spreads itself before us, weaving and creating, does not put me too much to shame!” With that preamble, the tone is set to consider an exemplary and specifically creative life.
The facts of Raphael’s life are presented straightforwardly; Willibald’s periodic interjections function largely to emphasize various points about the painter’s virtues. By this means, Mayrhofer draws attention to his subject’s dedication to learning, to his humility, and, of course, to the benefits he drew from the society of distinguished literary and artistic friends. At this point, Willibald interrupts with an apparent non sequitur, an expression of frustration with technically accomplished but crude musicians. Friedrich’s reply moves from crudity to one-sidedness, using the opportunity to argue for broadly based rather than single-minded cultivation. But the choice of musicians to exemplify unfeeling, superficial artistry resonates with Josef von Spaun’s much later assertion, cited above, that Schubert benefited from having literary and artistic friends rather than professional musical ones. It is tempting to imagine that Mayrhofer had Schubert in mind as a beneficiary of broad cultivation when writing these lines, but regardless, they attest to awareness of a gap between bourgeois literary cultivation and traditional musical training that would long play into Schubert’s life and reputation.
The dialogue then lurches immediately from (male) friendship to the prospect of a heterosexual relationship. This turn is particularly noteworthy because it does not stem from the dialogue’s source text, which separates the discussion of friendship from the painter’s relationship to women, and because Friedrich himself dismisses it for the moment. The turn and deflection, though, provide another indication of the powerful affective charge of the homosocial relationships of the Beyträge’s authors.
Next, the dialogue departs from the biographical as Friedrich notes that Raphael turned to Greek models while studying the nude. This provides, first, an opportunity to dismiss as misguided medieval Christian art (and even more, its modern imitators), and to uphold the classical as the true and appropriate model—a reminder of a fundamental artistic and literary orientation from which Schubert would depart only later. But it also allows a brief return to the political, for the aberrant turn that characterizes medieval art (“Romantic” in the world-historical sense then current) can only be explained by “Germans’ pain at the shameful position of their Fatherland and its political impotence, and by their longing for a time when they stood more honorably and powerfully.”
The remainder of Raphael’s career is dispensed with in a single brief paragraph, allowing Friedrich to return to the topic of Raphael’s engagement with women, and to expand on the final, negative example that Raphael’s life afforded—“his unfortunate passion.” Ever since Giorgio Vasari, the painter’s death at thirty-seven had been attributed to his excessive sexual activity, and the dialogue’s source, Das Leben Raphaels, followed this tradition.17 For Friedrich, Raphael’s giving in to “the enchantment of sensuality” becomes the basis for a reflection on the human duty to
recognize the beautiful along with the good, to transcend base desires, and to ennoble beauty rather than seek to possess it. In the end Raphael, for all his virtues, provides a tragic negative example. Although Willibald briefly attempts to excuse him, Friedrich insists on the highest of standards, both for the gifted artist and, ultimately, for the observer: “Let us guard ourselves and preserve unspoiled the flame of a higher love in our breast.” A brief return to the immediate scene, now suitably muted into twilight, precedes Raphael’s epitaph, which brings the meditation to a close.
Raphael: A Dialogue.*
Friedrich: So, dear friend, tell me, what do you think of the Belvedere?18
Willibald: I am dazed by all the splendors that we’ve seen this afternoon.
F: I believe you; we only did it to give you an overview of the treasures of art, and to establish in you the conviction that our princes also thought of that.
W: Both succeeded as you wished, and I have thereby been freed of yet another prejudice against our Fatherland, a prejudice that, as usual, had ignorance as its mother.
F: Of the paintings that we saw, which delighted you the most?
W: The two Madonnas by Raphael of Urbino.19
F: You’re right, my friend, to take joy in them; they are excellent, no matter how many a piece we have that equals them, or even exceeds them. In any case, in mentioning Raphael you’ve given me the stimulus to chat with you about various things concerning this immortal artist.
W: Do that, Friedrich, and let’s sit on this bench. There we’ll look over the garden with its greening trees, the city with its towers bathed in evening gold, and sections of vine-covered land bordered with blue mountains. There! And now tell me all about Raphael.
F: May I speak well—so that nature, which spreads itself gloriously before us, weaving and creating, does not put me too much to shame! You know in general about his short yet productive life, but I think that I will single out individual parts of it that are either unfamiliar, or to which you haven’t yet, as it happens, paid attention. For believe me, my young friend, it is rewarding to inspect and examine the life of a man who brought forth immortal works—whether as a painter or a composer, an architect or a poet, a philosopher or a lawgiver. From one who has done much, much is to be learned. Our Raphael, too, whom nature adorned with the richest predisposition for art, was for a long, long time an apprentice; indeed he continued his apprenticeship until his death, convinced to the core of his being that simple genius would not suffice when it came to bringing something into being that future times would continue to recognize as beautiful, harmonious, and completely successful.
W: He received his first instruction from his father, Johann Sanctio,20 if I’m not mistaken?
F: Whom he also soon surpassed, and who sent him on to the school of the celebrated Peter of Perugia.21 Now, he studied Peter’s works diligently, and the Ascension of Mary shows with what success. The student outstripped the master, yet the latter, free of petty jealousy, thanked Johann for honoring his school with his exceptional son and loved Raphael as he had before.
W: Behavior that must be deemed as rare as it is noble.
F: Thousands in Raphael’s position, having achieved a reputation at sixteen that others would not at sixty, would have remained there, admired and acclaimed, for the influence of laurels achieved early is numbing to the human brain and usually an impediment to the more beautiful manly development of our disposition.
W: And it is true that only a rare person resists this influence out of humility, or in the fiery premonition that there are still higher prizes to be won.
F: From Perugia, Raphael moved to Siena, in order to adorn the library there with his brush. Pinturicchio commended him, but soon, lured by the call of Leonardo and Buonarotti, he moved to splendid Florence, in order to perfect himself in his art. Florence he found uncommonly enjoyable, in part because he came upon more excellent models to emulate, in part because the beauty of the city and the amicable environment were good for his open senses. The death of his father called him back to Urbino, and later we find him in Perugia;22 in both cities he left behind immortal monuments. His heart, however, drove him constantly to Florence. How greatly he advanced through continuing study there he documented with his painting for the Baglioni chap
el in Perugia.23 The virtues of Leonardo, Fra Bartolomeo, and others seemed concentrated in him, and Rome strived to possess him. His School of the Philosophers won him the favor of Julius II,* who ordered that all older and newer paintings be taken away, so that Raphael could paint all of the halls.24 The death of Julius, and the elevation of the Medici Leo to the papal throne didn’t disturb him in his creations, each of which surpassed the other in perfection. Among them is his Burning of the Burgo. The ceiling of the hall in which he prepared this painting was painted by Master Peter, so Raphael opposed its destruction.
W: A tender trait of his appreciative nature—another of many such traits of our Raphael.
F: They are not lacking in his character; he was constantly surrounded by his students, who possessed a friend, indeed a father, in him.
W: Such a good man certainly had numerous friends.
F: To be sure, and very ingenious men at that. I need only mention Ariosto, Aretino, Pietro Bembo, Paolo Giovio, and Andrea Fulvio—a society that exercised the most fundamental influence on his production.
W: Dear friend, I have so often been annoyed by musicians who, though they delight others, seem to feel nothing, or when they put their instrument aside are insignificant, indeed sometimes crude and repulsive people.
F: If crudity or one-sidedness is already disagreeable in those who realize the thoughts of others, how much more so is it in those who think them. The Muses, after all, are sisters who love one another, and whoever offends one puts himself in danger of being abandoned by all of them at the crucial moment. Permeated by this idea, Raphael occupied himself with the study of poetry and history and left out of consideration no branch of knowledge that was related to his art.
W: Certainly he was also fortunate to find a feminine being who joined herself to him, loving and beloved.
F: More about that later, Willibald; let us consider the course of his further education. In Florence he had already convinced himself of the inadequacy and aridity of the manner of Peter of Perugia and adopted a more accomplished style. But in Rome, in part because he saw there Michelangelo’s brilliant works come into being, it became clear to him that he would again need to become a student if he were to approximate the ideal that he envisioned for himself as an artist.
W: He and Michelangelo became rivals, then.
F: Yet in such a way that Raphael often thanked heaven that he had had the good fortune to be a contemporary of Michelangelo, who had taught him a better style than Perugino.
W: His student? Remarkable—yet in the two paintings in the Belvedere there is a grace and tenderness uncharacteristic of Michelangelo.
F: To judge correctly the extent to which Raphael imitated him, we would need to have before us all the paintings that originated in this period. More than that, don’t forget that Raphael was an original mind, and thus could never sink to “imitatorum pecus.”25 Whatever he received or adopted he assimilated in his own way and stamped with his heavenly individuality.
Acquaintance with Michelangelo prompted him to study the nude, in part following anatomy and in part following ancient models; with this intent he occupied himself as a draftsman in all regions, as far even as Greece, and he drew diligently after Greek models.
W: But my God, what did he fail to take on? I would have thought he might have limited himself to the field offered him by Christianity and the Romantic; it is splendid and broad enough to satisfy many Raphaels.26 Besides, to my mind those sensual forms are scarcely compatible with our ideas of chastity and dignity, much less his Madonnas.
F: On the contrary, note that he was an architect. Florence and Rome attest to it, as do the designs he prepared for St. Peter’s. Beyond that, he was a sculptor. This double talent led him necessarily to the study of the Ancients, who created the greatest works of architecture and sculpture. As a painter he could do even less without them. Can you imagine that the thoroughly noble body and enchanting drapery of the seated Madonna we saw today could have come about if he had not been intimately acquainted with nature and the creations of the Ancients? Just think about the distortions and aberrations of the German school. Our countrymen set about drawing and painting diligently, with an effort and good nature that deserve admiration—what with the fall of the Roman Empire, the great migrations, feudalism, and the monastic spirit, the canon of the beautiful and the truthful, in a word, the classical, was hidden from them. Finally, Constantinople illuminated Italy, and Italy the rest of Europe. If these men were to be resurrected now that the sources of Hellenistic art have been opened, they would certainly create in a different spirit.
W: Now I understand your sour expressions at some of the paintings in the art exhibition. Nonetheless, you don’t believe the old-fashioned manner will take root?
F: As little as Gothic poetry or Chinese architecture, which sometimes seem to be becoming the order of the day. They are aberrations and nothing more—time will vindicate me.
W: But how do you explain them?
F: By the Germans’ pain at the shameful position of their Fatherland and its political impotence, and by their longing for a time when they filled a more honorable and powerful position. Their ancestors became enviable, and everything about them, even the vulgar and misguided, became respectable and worthy of imitation. The resurgence of our people will change this tendency.
W: Now, my dear friend, more about Raphael.
F: It was in his third style that we perceive the highest perfection of line, of color, of unity and expression. St. Cecilia of Bologna falls within this period, for many his most accomplished painting. He celebrated the triumph of his art, however, with his Transfiguration. Leo had made him supervisor of all works under construction in the Vatican. If everything else from Raphael’s hand were to be lost, this palace alone would secure his immortality.
W: In what amount of time did he create these immortal things?
F: In thirteen years, during which he also completed numerous exquisite works for private patrons.
W: Unbelievable!
F: And now, concerning his unfortunate passion and his end. Each of us, my good Willibald, is born with a sense not only for what is good, but for what is beautiful—only it must be appropriately developed, regulated, and worthily directed toward worthy objects. The bestial person wants nothing more than to enjoy that which appears beautiful to him, and cares neither for the perfection nor the destruction of the object that attracts him. The one who has wrested himself freer of bestiality through science, art, or some other nobler occupation, though without heightening his reason enough to master his instincts, is naturally more refined in his enjoyment, which nonetheless remains his principal goal; around it he braids all the blossoms of his fantasy and art, much like the Ancients did with the animals they were preparing to sacrifice. But those in whom rational nature rules feel beauty deeply, but purely, and thus strive not so much to possess and enjoy, but rather to ennoble. Think of Socrates, think of Petrarch. This feeling, expressed through a life not profaned by low desire, is truly one of the most honorable for humans, but it can be achieved only through struggle and self-conquest. Indeed, our Raphael often said that he was carried away by the charm, not of the gender, but of its beauty, and his art was nourished by the splendid visages of feminine beings. But he did not resist the enchantment of sensuality, which entrapped him and brought about his death in his thirty-seventh year.
W: Friedrich! Let us mourn his early and, for art, irreplaceable loss, and its cause; beyond that, let us be fair, and remember that he lived in a depraved time, that he was a painter who blazed a trail, and that he always conducted himself so amiably, benevolently, and kindly.
F: These considerations indeed moderate his errors, without annulling them. He whose temple was kissed by Venus Urania already at birth may more justly than others be expected to dedicate himself to serving her purely. But let us guard ourselves and preserve unspoiled the flame of a higher love in our breast.
W: God grant that it flourish. Look—a g
ossamer mist settles over the garden and the city, and the evening star floats on the darker backdrop of the sky. Let us go.
F: Just a few more words. His body was solemnly displayed in a hall and the Transfiguration placed at his head. Leo mourned the artist’s death more than others, and at his behest Pietro Bembo prepared the epitaph:
Ille hic est Raphael, timuit quo sospite vinci
Rerum magna parens et moriente mori.
Here lies Raphael, from whom nature feared defeat
while he lived and her own death when he died.
And now come!
—M.
* * *
*Politics, vol. 2, chap. 3. [Here and throughout, footnotes are those provided in the Beyträge.]
*1 Samuel 20:17.
**Chrysippus in Diogenes Laërtius.
*In Plato.
*Plato in the First Alcibiades.
*Montaigne, “De l’amitié.”
*From: “Das Leben Raphaels.” By a contemporary. Munich 1817.
*In his Foreword to Plato, Stolberg says that in this splendid painting by Raphael, which is so famous under the name The School of Athens, Plato and Aristotle are represented as standing next to each other. Plato looks toward heaven with wise drunkenness; Aristotle looks to the ground with a penetrating gaze, as if all nature, and with it mankind in all its earthly as well as sociable relations, lay at his feet.
NOTES
1. As Ilija Dürhammer notes, Josef Kenner and Josef Kreil, members of the same circle of friends, participated in the publication, though in a far less active way. See Dürhammer, Schuberts literarische Heimat: Dichtung und Literaturrezeption der Schubert-Freunde (Vienna, 1999), 64.
Franz Schubert and His World Page 9
