RAFFAELLO Sanzio
Italian High Renaissance Painter, 1483-1520
Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510 C 11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante,
ID: 63803 The Judgment of Solomon 1510-11 Fresco, 120 x 105 cm Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican The story from the Old Testament tells how two women came to Solomon to settle a dispute about which one was the mother of a child. When Solomon ordered the baby to be cut in half, one of the women agreed to give up the child. Solomon recognized her as the true mother. The man holding the sword derives from a classical figure, either Castor or Pollux from the Quirinal, an ancient Roman palace.Artist:RAFFAELLO Sanzio Title: The Judgment of Solomon (ceiling panel) Painted in 1501-1550 , Italian - - painting : religious
