Raphael Sanzio
Biography and Paintings of Italian High Renaissance Artist
Visual Arts Guide

Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520)

Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian painter Raphael is one of the three supreme Old Masters of the High Renaissance period. He is also known as 'Il Divino' (The Divine One). Influenced by the artists Pietro Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Masaccio and Fra Bartolomeo, he is celebrated for the perfect grace of his fine art painting and drawing. His most notable works include his frescos in the ‘Raphael Rooms’ at the Palace of the Vatican and his painting The Transfiguration (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican Museum).

Raphael was born in Urbino, central Italy, during the final years of the early Renaissance. His father Giovanni Santi was a court painter to Duke Federigo da Montefeltro and gave his son his first painting lessons. When he was a teenager, Raphael was sent to apprentice under Pietro Perugino, leading painter of the Umbrian school. Raphael became a 'Master', fully qualified and trained in 1501.

His career falls into 3 phases. The first phase was his early years in Umbria when under Perugino's influence he produced works like The Spozalizio, The Marriage of the Virgin and The Coronation of the Virgin. His second period runs from 1504 to 1508 when he painted in Florence and produced works like The Entombment and La Belle Jardiniere. And his third and final period were the following 12 years when he worked in Rome for 2 Popes and produced works such as St Cecilia, The Madonna di San Sisto, The Transfiguration and The Cartoons.

During his Florentine period, Raphael came to be influenced by the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who was 30 years his senior. This influence can be seen in his figure drawing of a young woman that uses the 3-quarter length pyramidal composition used by Da Vinci in the just-completed Mona Lisa. Raphael also perfected Da Vinci's sfumato technique to give subtlety to the flesh of his figures.

In 1508 Raphael moved to Rome where he lived for the rest of his short life. Gaining fame as one of the most outstanding artists of the High Renaissance, it was in Rome that he produced some of his most beautiful frescos on the wall of the Vatican. In 1511 he started painting the Stanza della Segnatura, the first of his most famous 'Stanze' or 'Raphael Rooms' at the Palace of the Vatican. He was commissioned to paint 3 others rooms and increasingly started to rely on his team of skilled assistants to help complete works. He was influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, which was being painted at the same time. Michelangelo was in fact to accuse Raphael of plagiarism and years later complained that 'everything he knew about art he got from me'. Work at the Vatican took up most of his time, but he still managed to paint several portraits of patrons, popes, rulers and friends. He also painted decorative frescos for the villas of rich patrons, and at the churches of Santa Maria della Pace and Santa Maria del Popolo.

He also received a commissioned to create a series of 10 cartoons (only 7 survive) for tapestries about the life of Saint Paul and Peter for the Sistine Chapel. He drew the cartoons, which were then sent to Brussels to be woven. It is not certain if he saw the works before he died. His last work was a painting called The Transfiguration (completed by his pupil Giulio Romano after his death and now housed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican Museum), which showed that his work was moving towards a more Mannerist style, exemplified by drama and grandeur.

Raphael died in 1520 when he was only 37 years old. According to his biographer Vasari, Raphael's unexpected death was caused by a night of excessive 'romance' after which he fell into a fever and died 15 days later. Despite his few years on Earth, he left behind a large volume of works and masterpieces and a reputation as one of the most naturally gifted painters in the history of art. Along with the Venetian painter Titian, Raphael remains one of the most famous artists of the Renaissance, even if in modern times both have been overshadowed by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

• For information about the best artists in Ireland, see: Irish Art Guide

• How to Update This Artist Biography of Raphael Sanzio

Irish Art News Stories - Guide to Irish Art Exhibitions and Shows
© visual-arts-cork.com 2008 All rights reserved.