On April 6, 1520, Rafael Sanzio, one of the greatest painters in Western history, died in Rome. It was Good Friday. There are those who saw messianic echoes, an analogy of the Divine Raphael with Jesus Christ: Both died on the same day, already in their thirties. They say that when Rafael died, the foundations of the Vatican cracked. That evoked what happened in the Temple of Jerusalem, although it had more to do with some miscalculation of Bramante. Princes and Popes mourned the premature death of the brilliant artist. He was 37 years old. A short life, but lived intensely: very prolific personally (according to Vasari, she died due to “her love excesses”) and professionally. His
his meteoric career barely lasted two decades, but he kept the position of Leonardo and Michelangelo themselves.
In 2020, a great anthology of the artist was inaugurated at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, but because of the Covid it was only open for a few days. The scheduled in National Gallery of London had to be postponed. Two years later, it has been possible to resume, keeping most of the loans, with exceptions, such as a ‘Sagrada Familia’, from the Hermitage. “We have witnessed a true solidarity between museums – explains Gabriele Finaldi, director of the British museum, who on Tuesday accompanied Queen Letizia and the Prince of Wales at the opening of the Spanish Gallery at Bishop Auckland Castle, north from England-. I am very grateful that the commitments made by museums and private collectors in 2020 have been kept until 2022. The Uffizi, the Louvre, the National Gallery in Washington and the Prado have kept their promises. Unfortunately, the realities of geopolitics have made the loan from the Hermitage no longer possible. There are currently no planned loan exchanges with Russian museums. I am very hopeful that a resolution of the terrible conflict in Ukraine will allow a return to normal cultural and institutional relations between European and Russian museums, but it does not seem imminent. During the pandemic and in this period of war, international cooperation between museums has continued. Interestingly, the museum changed the name of one of its works by Degas a few days ago: the ‘Russian Dancers’ have become the ‘Ukrainian Dancers’. As if that weren’t enough, the war, the economic crisis, Brexit and Covid are added to the rise in fuel prices, which greatly affects the costs of transporting works of art.
Curated by Tom Henry, David Ekserdjian and Matthias Wivel, it is one of the first exhibitions on the Italian master to addresses all facets: not only as a painter and draftsman, but also his projects in architecture, archaeology, sculpture, tapestries, engravings, decorative arts…
Raphael, who captured in his works the divine and the human, love and friendship, knowledge and power, displays his prodigious talent in more than 90 works (all by his hand and his workshop and some made by other artists according to his designs), which hang, from April 9 to July 31, in eight of the noble rooms of the museum, located in Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London. Exceptional loans are added to the nine paintings by Raphael held by the National Gallery. On the Spanish side, two works from the Prado (‘The Virgin of the Fish’ and ‘The Virgin of the Rose’), a tapestry from the Museum of Decorative Arts (‘The Vision of Ezequiel’) and a miniature from the Abelló Collection: the ‘ Portrait of Valerio Belli’, acquired in 2016 at auction.
Finaldi highlights the altarpiece of Santa Cecilia, from the National Pinacoteca of Bologna: «It is fascinatingly beautiful and ingenious. I recommend experiencing a moment of aesthetic ecstasy in front of him.” In addition, a splendid selection of his beautiful Madonnas with Niño, which he turned into his own genre (the ‘Madonna Alba, the ‘Madonna Tempi’, the ‘Madonna del Granduca’, the Madonna Garvagh’, the ‘Madonna Bridgewater’…) and a superb portrait gallery at the end of the exhibition: on a wall, his self-portrait with his most beloved disciple, Giulio Romano, flanked by those of his friends Baltasar Castiglione (the most beautiful blue eyes in the history of art) and the handsome Florentine banker Bindo Altoviti. Facing each other, hers two best female portraits of her: she painted half nude to the Fornarina, the baker’s daughter, with whom he gave free rein to his passions, but apparently, the woman whom Rafael loved until the end of his days must have been the mysterious model whom he painted with care in ‘La Donna Velata’ . Portraits of his powerful patrons are not lacking: Pope Julius II (old and tired), Lorenzo de’ Medici…
The sample reviews all its productionfrom the beginning in his native Urbino and in the Marches (a supposed self-portrait, drawings for the altarpiece of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino and a ‘Saint Sebastian’), his time in Florence (a portrait of a lady, ‘La Muta’, very reminiscent of the ‘Gioconda’; it also follows Leonardo in a drawing, ‘Leda and the Swan’) and, especially, his works in Rome under the orders of two Popes (Julius II and Leo X). A room is dedicated to his great project: the decoration of the Vatican Stays. The famous fresco of ‘The School of Athens’ has been reproduced. Another is centered on the figure of his great patron, the papal banker Agostino Chigi, who commissioned two chapels in the churches of Santa Maria della Pace and Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, as well as the decoration of Villa Farnesina. There are sketches of these projects in the exhibition, which has magnificent drawings on loan from the Louvre, the Bristh Museum, the Albertina, the Ashmolean in Oxford or the collection of the Queen of England. Precious, the red drawing of a nude young woman, owned by the Louvre. He was possibly the first artist since classical antiquity to make studies of the female nude.
His curiosity was such that he even designed decorative objects: this is the case of an autograph drawing for the edge of a tray. He surrounded himself and worked with the best artists: some bronze medallions attributed to Cesarino Rossetti and engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi are exhibited, all of them according to works by Raphael. Revolutionized tapestry design: hangs ‘Saint Paul preaching in Athens’, from the series on the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ that he executed to measure himself against Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. In 2020, and only for a week, they met again. Next to the tapestry is the facsimile of the cardboard, made by Factum Arte. Seven of Raphael’s cartoons, royal property and deposited in the Victoria & Albert Museum, have been preserved.
From his role as ancient rome surveyor and curator of heritage (he undertook an ambitious study of the city with drawings of the main buildings) gives a good account of the letter that Raphael and Castiglione sent to Leo X, on loan from the Mantua Archive and displayed in a showcase, in which it is described as “the shame of our age” the destruction of important ruins of the Eternal City. The architectural facet of it is not lacking either. He was appointed architect of St. Peter’s Basilica after Bramante’s death. In the exhibition are drawings of the interior of the Pantheon in Rome, where Raphael is buried, as well as his projects for private residences: Villa Madama (the Medici’s summer residence outside Rome) or the Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila. A model of its facade is exhibited.
What does this exhibition contribute to Rafael’s vision? «Raphael’s art is idealized, harmonious and seeks to embody the highest concepts of classicist beauty. At a time when we are very aware of our frailties as individuals and peoples, Rafael offers a vibrant and optimistic vision, an attractive and reassuring utopia. The exhibition also wants to draw attention to Raphael’s frankly amazing skill and inventiveness, the wide variety of his artistic output in what was actually a very short career. He died at 37 years ».
In its epitaph wrote Pietro Bembo: “Here lies Raphael: nature was afraid of being overcome by him when he lived and was afraid of dying when he died.” Prince of painters, he was a universal artist, who embodied the model of perfection to which artists should aspire, whose work was revolutionary and whose legacy is immortal. Five hundred years after his death, his star continues to shine with the same intensity. Today, with the permission of Elizabeth II, Raphael reigns in England. God save the king!