Raphael _ Raffaello Sanzio_ Tempi Madonna

This image of affection between Jesus Christ and his mother, the Virgin Mary, is by Raffaello Sanzio, who is popularly known as Raphael. One of the earliest histories of the Italian Renaissance was written by Giorgio Vasari, entitled The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari's book remains a foundational source in the study of the Italian Renaissance. Vasari called Raphael, quote, a mortal god. Looking at this work, which is known as the Tempi Madonna, let's critically consider if Vasari's praise of Raphael was justified. Vasari's first purpose was to celebrate both Raphael's imagination, as well as the artist's technical skill. Vasari wrote that Raphael was singularly blessed with a measure of creative genius that is usually dispersed among several artists. Vasari extolled Raphael's ability to capture nature in art. If God was the creator of the not only an illusion of nature, but an image of nature in a state of perfection, was a talent that Vasari attributed to divine inspiration. In this work, we can see Raphael's naturalism in the atmospheric landscape that frames the mother and child. Raphael's figures have such convincing three-dimensional volume that they seem to be moving through the picture plane and into the viewer's space. For Raphael's contemporary Catholic viewers, the naturalism of this devotional painting may have seemed like a spiritual vision brought to life, as if the artist had somehow miraculously made the Virgin Mary in Christ present for the Renaissance Christian. Vasari's second point in describing Raphael as a mortal god was a reference to the artist's Christlike character. Raphael was described by his contemporaries as a devout Christian. The fact that Raphael had been born on Good Friday in 1483 and that he also died on Good Friday in 1520 was often cited as a sign that Raphael was spiritually blessed. But Vasari went even further. According to Vasari, Raphael was so thoroughly endowed with grace and virtue that evil men would flee at the sight of him. Even if Vasari's portrait of Raphael's saintliness was exaggerated for effect, Raphael's devotion to God did focus the artist's creativity on motifs of grace. Throughout his entire life, but especially in the years between 1504 and 1508 that he spent in Florence, Raphael's imagination was continuously preoccupied with the motif of the Madonna and Christ. No other motif appears more frequently or in as many different ways than the spiritual bond between the Virgin Mary and her son. Raphael's paintings of the Virgin Mary have shaped the spiritual imaginations of countless viewers. While modern critics might dismiss Vasari's praise as extravagant, his proposition is that beautiful images such as this one, works of art that visualize Christ and his mother in a perfect state of grace, could only have been imagined and painted by an artist who was uniquely blessed by the divine. In this painting, Raphael cultivates a visual method of graceful elegance. Vasari claimed that Raphael's ability to visualize divine perfection in natural and accessible forms made him a mortal god. Each viewer must consider for themselves if that praise still resonates with their experience of looking at this painting.