Lives of the Artists

by Giorgio Vasari

  Raphael was also responsible for the architecture of the Chigi stables and Agostino’s chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. As well as painting this chapel, he designed for it a marvellous tomb for which he commissioned the Florentine sculptor Lorenzeto to make two figures, which are still to be found in his house in the Macello di Corvi in Rome. Because of the death of Raphael, however, followed by that of Agostino, the work was given to Sebastiano del Piombo.

  Meanwhile, Raphael had risen to such heights that Leo X gave orders that he should set to work on the Great Hall on the upper floor, where are depicted the Victories of Constantine. Raphael made a start on this, and meanwhile the Pope decided he would have some very rich tapestries made in gold and floss-silk. So Raphael drew and coloured in his own hand all the cartoons, in the exact form and size needed, and these were sent to be woven in Flanders. After they had been finished, the tapestries were sent back to Rome. The completed work was of such wonderful beauty that it astonishes anyone who sees it to think that it could have been possible to weave the hair and the beards so finely and to have given such softness to the flesh merely by the use of threads. The tapestries seem to have been created by a miracle rather than by human skill, for they contain expanses of water, animals, and buildings which are so finely executed that they look as if they were painted. This work cost seventy thousand crowns, and it is still kept in the Sistine Chapel.

  For Cardinal Colonna, Raphael painted a St John on canvas. As this was a beautiful work the cardinal was extremely fond of it. But then, after he was struck down by illness, he was asked for it by the doctor who cured him, Jacopo da Carpi. Since Jacopo had set his heart on the painting, and the cardinal thought he was greatly in his debt, he gave it to him; and today it is in Florence in the possession of Francesco Benintendi.

  For Giulio de’ Medici, cardinal and vice-chancellor, Raphael painted a panel picture, to be sent to France, of the Transfiguration of Christ. He himself worked ceaselessly on this painting, which he brought to complete perfection. The scene shows Christ transfigured on Mount Tabor, with the eleven disciples waiting for him below. There is a young man, possessed by a devil, who has been brought so that Christ may heal him after he has come down from the mountain. The possessed man’s body is all contorted and he is groaning and rolling his eyes; his suffering is revealed in his flesh, his veins, and the beat of his pulse, which are all infected by the evil spirit. He is deathly pale as he gesticulates with fearsome violence. This figure is held up by an old man who, having embraced him and taken heart, with his eyes wide open and staring, reveals both fear and resolve as he screws up his forehead and arches his brows. He keeps his eyes fixed on the apostles, and he seems to draw strength from the hope he places in them. Among the many women to be seen there is one, the principal figure in the panel, who kneels before the apostles and turns her head towards them, gesturing with her arms in the direction of the possessed man to draw attention to his misery. Beyond her, the apostles, some of them standing, others seated or kneeling, show that they are moved to great compassion by such misery. And, indeed, in this scene Raphael created heads and figures of exceptional beauty. They are so varied and original that it is the accepted opinion of artists that of all the many works he made this painting is the most glorious, the loveliest, and the most inspired. Whoever wants to imagine and then express in paint the Transfiguration of Christ should study him in this work, where he is depicted floating in the luminous air above the mountain. The foreshortened figure of Christ is shown between Moses and Elias who are bathed in light and who reflect his radiance. Peter, James, and John are shown prostrate on the ground, in attitudes of great variety and beauty: one rests his head on the earth, another is covering his eyes with his hand to protect them from the rays and the intense light of Christ’s splendour. Clothed in snow-white garments, Christ himself extends his arms and raises his head, and he reveals the Essence and Godhead of all three Persons of the Trinity, fused in him by the perfect art of Raphael. And Raphael seems to have summoned up all his powers to demonstrate the strength and genius of his art in his countenance; for having finished this, the last thing he was to do, he died without taking up the brush again.

  Now that I have described the works of this talented painter I must, before giving further details of his life and death, take the trouble, for the benefit of our artists, to discuss the various styles in which he painted. In his boyhood, then, he imitated the style of his master, Pietro Perugino; and after he had vastly improved on it as regards drawing, colouring, and invention, he considered that he had accomplished enough. But when he was more mature, he realized that he was still a long way from the truth. Then he saw the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who had no equal in the expressions of heads, both of men and women, and who in giving grace and movement to his figures surpassed all other painters. Leonardo’s paintings left Raphael amazed and entranced; and, in brief, liking Leonardo’s manner more than any he had seen hitherto, he began to study it. Gradually abandoning what he had learned from Perugino, although only with great difficulty, Raphael tried to the best of his ability and knowledge to imitate Leonardo’s style. However, for all his diligence and study, in certain problems he was never able to surpass Leonardo. And although there were many who considered that he surpassed Leonardo in sweetness and in a kind of natural facility, none the less, Raphael never achieved the sublimity of Leonardo’s basic conceptions or the grandeur of his art. In this context, however, where few can stand comparison with Leonardo, Raphael came nearer to him than any other painter, notably in grace of colouring.

  But to return to Raphael himself: in time the style he had adopted so effortlessly from Pietro when he was a young man started to impede and restrict his development, since it was pedantic, harsh, and feeble in draughtsmanship. Because he could not rid himself of it he experienced great difficulty in learning the finer points of the nude and the technique for doing difficult foreshortenings from the cartoon that Michelangelo Buonarroti made for the Council Hall in Florence. No other artist, no matter how talented, would have been able to do what, convinced that he had so far been wasting his time, Raphael was then able to accomplish. For he rid himself completely of the burden of Pietro’s manner to learn from the work of Michelangelo a style that was immensely difficult in every particular; and he turned himself, as it were, from a master into a pupil once more. Taking immense pains, he forced himself as a grown man to learn within the space of a few months something which demanded the easy aptitude of youth and years of study. To be sure, the artist who does not learn early on the principles and the style that he intends to adopt and who does not gradually solve the problems of his art by practice, striving to learn and master every aspect of it, will rarely become perfect. If he does, it will take far longer and considerably more effort.

  At the time when Raphael determined to change and improve his style he had never studied the nude as intensely as it requires, for he had only copied it from life, employing the methods he had seen used by Perugino, although he gave his figures a grace that he understood instinctively. So he began to study the nude form and to compare the muscles as revealed in anatomical drawings or dissected corpses with them as they are seen, less starkly defined, in the living body. He saw how the soft and fleshy parts are formed and how from different viewpoints various graceful convolutions appear, and also the visual effects of inflating, raising, and lowering the whole body or one of its members. He also studied the articulation of the bones, nerves, and veins, and he mastered all the points that a great painter needs to know.

  None the less, Raphael realized that in this matter he could never rival the accomplishments of Michelangelo, and therefore, like the judicious man he was, he reflected that painters are not confined to making numerous studies of naked men but can range over a very wide field. Among the finest painters could also be included those who knew how to express with skill, facility, and judgement their various scenes, inventions, and ideas, and who in composing their pictures kne
w how to avoid crowding them with too much detail or impoverishing them by putting in too little, and produced works of fine stylistic purity and order. They, too, must be regarded as being skilled and judicious artists. As well as these qualities the artist must be able to embellish his paintings with varied and unusual perspectives, of buildings and landscapes, with lovely draperies, with figures that fade into the shadows or are thrown into prominence by the clear light, with beautifully executed heads of young men and old, women and children, endowed with suitable vigour and movement. Raphael also considered how important it was to be able to show the flight of horses in a battle and the fierceness of the soldiers, to know how to depict all kinds of animals, and above all to be able to paint portraits so faithful that they are wholly lifelike and immediately recognizable. Then it was important to be able to depict countless other things, namely, draperies, shoes, helmets, armour, women’s head-dresses, hair, beards, vases, trees, grottoes, rocks, fires, skies overcast or clear, clouds, rain, lightning, fine weather, night-time, moonlight, bright sunshine, and countless other subjects which are used by painters nowadays.

  Having considered all this, therefore, Raphael, being unable to compete with Michelangelo in the branch of painting to which he had set his hand, resolved to emulate and perhaps surpass him in other respects. So he decided not to waste his time by imitating Michelangelo’s style but to attain a catholic excellence in the other fields of painting that have been described. His example might well have been followed by many contemporary artists who, because they have confined themselves to studying the works of Michelangelo, have failed to imitate him or reach his standard of perfection; if they had followed Raphael, instead of wasting their time and creating a style that is very harsh and laboured, that lacks charm and is defective in colouring and invention, they would, by aiming at a catholic excellence and trying to become proficient in the other fields of painting, have benefited themselves and everyone else.

  When he had decided what to do, Raphael turned his attention to the work of Bartolommeo di San Marco. Fra Bartolommeo was a competent painter and a sound draughtsman with a pleasant style of colouring, although sometimes for the sake of greater relief he made too much use of shadows. From this painter Raphael took what suited his needs and inclination, namely, a middle course as regards drawing and colouring; and to this he added various methods chosen from the finest works of other painters to form from many different styles a single manner which he made entirely his own and which always was and always will be the object of tremendous admiration. He brought this style to perfection when he painted the sibyls and prophets for the work executed, as I mentioned, for Santa Maria della Pace. And when he did this it was of great benefit to him to have seen Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel.

  If Raphael had rested content with his own style and not tried to show by striving to give his work more variety and grandeur that he understood how to depict the nude as well as Michelangelo he would not have lost some of his fine reputation; for despite their many qualities the nudes that he painted in the room in the Borgia Tower (where the Fire in the Borgo was represented) fall short of perfection. Nor are those that Raphael made on the ceiling of the palace of Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere completely satisfying, since they lack his characteristic grace and sweetness. To a large extent this was because he had them coloured by others after his designs. However, regretting his mistake, like the judicious man he was he then made up his mind to paint without the assistance of anyone else the altarpiece for San Pietro in Montorio, showing the Transfiguration of Christ, where are displayed all the qualities which, as I described, a good picture needs and must have. And if he had not on some whim or other used printer’s black (which, as has often been pointed out, becomes gradually darker with time and damages the other colours with which it is mixed) this work would be as fresh as when it was first executed, whereas today it seems to be a mass of shadowy tints.

  I wanted to discuss these matters towards the end of Raphael’s Life to show the painstaking study and diligence with which that renowned artist applied himself and, above all, to assist other painters to learn how to avoid the mistakes from which Raphael was rescued by his wisdom and genius. Let me say this as well: that everyone should be content to do what he feels is natural to him and should never, merely to emulate others, want to try his hand at something for which he has no natural gift; otherwise he will labour in vain, and often to his own shame and loss. Moreover, when he has done his best a painter should not try to do even better in order to surpass those whom God and nature have made so gifted that their work seems almost miraculous. For if he lacks the ability, whatever his efforts he will never be able to achieve what another painter, with the help of nature, can take in his stride.

  Among the early painters we have as an instance of this Paolo Uccello, who worked in opposition to his natural talents in order to improve his painting and who succeeded merely in slipping back. In our own time (only a short while ago) the same misfortune befell Jacopo Pontormo; and, as I have said already and shall say again, there are many other artists to whom the same thing has clearly happened. And perhaps this is so everyone may be satisfied with the talent he is born with.

  But now that I have discussed these questions, perhaps at too great a length, I must return to the life and death of Raphael. It happened that he was very friendly with Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, who for many years kept pestering him to get married. Without giving the cardinal a direct yes or no, Raphael had delayed the issue for a good while by saying that he wanted to wait for three or four years. So the years passed, and then when he was not expecting it the cardinal reminded him of his promise. Thinking himself under an obligation, like the courteous man he was Raphael refused to go back on his word and he agreed to marry a niece of the cardinal’s. But he resented this entanglement and kept putting things off; and after several months still the wedding had not taken place. All the same, his motives were not dishonourable; for the truth of the matter was that as he had served the court for many years and Pope Leo owed him a great deal of money he had been dropped the hint that, when the hall he was painting was finished, to reward him for his labour and talent the Pope would give him a red hat. (For the Pope had already decided to create a number of new cardinals, among whom there were several less deserving than Raphael.)

  Meanwhile, Raphael kept up his secret love affairs and pursued his pleasures with no sense of moderation. And then on one occasion he went to excess, and he returned home afterwards with a violent fever which the doctors diagnosed as having been caused by heat-stroke. Raphael kept quiet about his incontinence and, very imprudently, instead of giving him the restoratives he needed they bled him until he grew faint and felt himself sinking. So he made his will: and first, as a good Christian, he sent his mistress away, leaving her the means to live a decent life. Then he divided his belongings among his disciples, Giulio Romano, whom he had always loved dearly, the Florentine Giovanni Francesco, called Il Fattore, and a priest I know nothing about who was a relation of his and came from Urbino. Next he stipulated that some of his wealth should be used for restoring with new masonry one of the ancient tabernacles in Santa Maria Rotonda and for making an altar with a marble statue of Our Lady; and he chose this church, the Pantheon, as his place of rest and burial after death. He left all the rest of his possessions to Giulio and Giovanni Francesco, and he appointed as his executor Baldassare da Pescia, then the Pope’s datary. Having made his confession and repented, Raphael ended his life on Good Friday, the same day he was born. He was thirty-seven when he died; and we can be sure that just as he embellished the world with his talent so his soul now adorns heaven itself.

  As he lay dead in the hall where he had been working they placed at his head the picture of the Transfiguration which he had done for Cardinal de’ Medici; and the sight of this living work of art along with his dead body made the hearts of everyone who saw it burst with sorrow. In memory of Raphael, the cardinal later pla
ced this picture on the high altar of San Pietro in Montorio, where because of the nobility of everything that Raphael ever did it was afterwards held in great reverence. Raphael was given the honourable burial that his noble spirit deserved, and there was no artist who did not weep with sorrow as he followed him to the grave.

  His death also plunged into grief the entire papal court, first since when he was alive he had held the office of Groom of the Chamber, and then because of the affection in which he had been held by the Pope, who wept bitterly when he died. How blessed and happy is the soul of Raphael! Everyone is glad to talk of him and to celebrate his actions and admire all the drawings that he left. When this noble craftsman died, the art of painting might well have died with him; for when Raphael closed his eyes, painting was left as if blind.

  For those of us who survive him, it remains to imitate the good, or rather the supremely excellent method that he left for our example and, as is our duty and as his merits demand, always to remember what he did with gratitude and to pay him the highest honour in what we say. For to be sure, because of Raphael, art, colouring, and invention have all three been brought to a pitch of perfection that could scarcely have been hoped for; nor need anyone ever hope to surpass him. Apart from the benefits that he conferred on painting, as a true friend of the art, while he was alive he never ceased to show us how to conduct ourselves when dealing with great men, with those of middle rank or station, and with the lowest. And among his exceptional gifts I must acknowledge one of great value that fills me with amazement; namely, that heaven gave him the power to bring about in our profession a phenomenon completely alien to our character as painters. What happened was that craftsmen who worked with Raphael began to live in a state of natural harmony and agreement. (This was true not only of artists of ordinary talent but also of those who made some pretence to be great men, and painting produces any number of those.) At the sight of Raphael, all their bad humour died away, and every base and unworthy thought left their minds. This harmony was never greater than while Raphael was alive; and this state of affairs came about because the artists were won over by his accomplishments and his courteous behaviour, and above all by the loving-kindness of his nature. Raphael was so gentle and so charitable that even animals loved him, not to speak of men.