Art Movements You Should Know. Episodes 10-20 From Romans to the Renaissance. #arthistory #artclass

If you happen to be in Rome and you're coming out of the Colosseo metro stop, you'll be confronted with a dramatic view of what I consider to be the most iconic thing from Ancient Rome. Spend a few minutes with me exploring the Roman Colosseum, or the Flavian Amphitheater. We've learned how those ancient Romans were clever engineers. They perfected the use of the arch, they gave us aqueducts that could move water anywhere. Completed around 80 CE under Emperor Titus, this massive amphitheater could hold somewhere between 50 and 70,000 spectators. Built from travertine, stone, brick, and marble, it's really just a series of arches that are created to form a circle. The Colosseum was built for spectacle, and its biggest stars were gladiators. You would get your ticket, you'd find your Roman numeral, and then you'd enter the space. Tens of thousands of people could enter and exit in just minutes. If you've ever attended a modern sports event, you can thank the Romans. Now, about those gladiators. Contrary to Hollywood, not all the gladiators were slaves. Some were prisoners of war, and some were criminals. Others were volunteers hoping to earn fame, fortune, or even freedom. They trained in specialized schools where they learned to fight with different weapons and armor. Animals were brought in from around the empire to fight the gladiators. A typical event would last an entire day. The morning events would begin with animal hunts. When the sun got hot overhead, fabric awnings were pulled across the space for shade. The spectators would sit according to class, with the most important men at the bottom, women and slaves up at the top. The emperors understood that their people needed bread and circus. What we would consider brutal violence was on display, and by entertaining the people, it kept them content. There was even a mock naval battle that was recreated by flooding the entire interior of the Colosseum space. Now, people of the Christian faith were persecuted under several Roman emperors, but there's no clear evidence that the Colosseum was the primary site where thousands of Christians were martyred. The Colosseum did host public executions, and some Christians were most certainly among those put to death there. Today, the Colosseum stands in ruins, but it is consistently being worked on and repaired and restored. There's a saying that says, if the Colosseum falls, so shall Rome. So, of course, the superstitious Italians want to keep it there. Going from the bottom to the top, you can see the three major orders of columns. Doric on the bottom, Ionic in the middle, and Corinthian on top. Ultimately, the Colosseum reflects the ancient Romans. The Roman Colosseum reflects what the ancient Romans believed, celebrated, and what they wanted to watch. As the Roman Empire collapsed, we see a number of movements and ideas start to take root all over Europe. So, stay tuned for more adventures and art movements. Please like, follow, and subscribe. Also, check out my work at rainershawnstudios.com. What happened after the fall of the Roman Empire? As the Roman Empire crumbled in the West, art didn't disappear. It evolved. It transformed. Over the next 600 years, artists shifted their focus from celebrating earthly power to expressing divine truth. In today's episode of Art Movements You Should Know, we're going to explore early Christian art, Byzantine, and Romanesque art. The Roman Empire collapsed in 476 CE. Europe entered a period of political uncertainty, and Christianity was growing rapidly. The Christian faith was the primary force shaping artistic expression. These early Christian artists borrowed Roman forms, basilicas, mosaics, and frescoes, but they filled them with new meaning. Instead of glorifying emperors and military victories, early Christian artists depicted Christ, biblical stories, and the promise of salvation. The naturalism and realism that we started to see in ancient Greek and Roman art became less important. What was more important was symbolism and iconography. They created a powerful shorthand for the Christian faith. Many of these works could be found in the catacombs beneath Rome, places where early Christians worshipped and buried their dead. While the Western Empire had fallen, the Eastern Roman Empire continued to thrive from its capital of Constantinople. Much like their early Christian counterparts, Byzantine artists weren't interested in realistic windows into their world. Figures became elongated and frontal with large expressive eyes that seemed to look beyond our world. The best example of Byzantine architecture is the Hagia Sophia. Located in Istanbul, its massive dome appears to float effortlessly above the worshippers below, while shimmering mosaics reflect candlelight in ways that makes the space feel almost supernatural. Icons, sacred images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints became central to personal devotion. These images invited believers into moments of prayer and contemplation. These artists are setting up the foundations for imagery that we're going to see over and over again as we proceed forward. As Europe gradually stabilized around the year 1000, a new style emerged, Romanesque art. The word simply means Roman-like. Builders look back to the Roman engineering that we've talked about. The rounded arch, the thick stone walls, and the sturdy barrel vaults. The building boom resulted in a network of churches. Each one would have some kind of important religious object in it. And we see the beginnings of the pilgrimage. These churches were filled with sculptures, murals, and illuminated manuscripts that told biblical stories. These movements reveal one of greatest transformations in the history of art. Classical naturalism giving way to spiritual symbolism. Art was less interested in the physical world and more interested in revealing spiritual truths. Thank you for the likes, follows, and subscribes. You can check out my work as an artist on rainershawnstudios.com. When Notre Dame burned, the entire world stopped. I remember my own gut punch of emotion. I had visited there many times, painted there, and led student groups through there. This event moved millions of people to tears. And it's because Notre Dame isn't just a church. It's one of the greatest works of Gothic art ever created. Welcome to Art Movements You Should Know. If you want to understand Gothic art, there's no better place to start than Notre Dame of Paris. Construction began in 1163 and for two centuries, builders, sculptors, and stained glass artists and craftsmen worked together to create something monumental. An easy way to identify a I think one of the best ways to understand this building is to look at it and think about it from the point of view of a peasant from the Middle Ages. Sculpted saints look down on you as you enter into the space. Maybe it creates a sense of humility in the participant who's about to enter the building. Just before you walk in the door, you look to your side and see this saint holding his head. Saint Denis had his head cut off for preaching the gospel, yet he kept on preaching. So what have you done for God lately? Might be on a person's mind. Just above the door is a tympanum with the scene of the Last Judgment. Christ sits on the throne, separating the souls. And if you look carefully below Christ, you'll see the devil being tricky again. The scales of good and evil are being tampered with by the small demon below who's pulling down the side that would send the soul into hell. Entering into the space, you get a sense of the scale. The soaring ceilings filled with light. Flying buttresses was an innovation created in the Middle Ages. These were attached to the side of the building, butted up against it, and then lit into the ground. That allowed for soaring ceilings, and then you were able to fill those walls with stained-glass windows. Those stained-glass windows could tell Bible stories. And remember that most people in the Middle Ages would have been illiterate. The stained-glass windows were almost like comic book scenes. Outside on the roof were gargoyles. These were these monstrously hideous-looking demon-like figures. On a practical level, they served as gutters, or almost drains, so that the water could come out of their mouths. The word gargoyle, think about the word gargle in English. The gargoyles have a lot of personality, and I think they show the whimsy of the artists of the Middle Ages. This one, called the bored gargoyle, is quite well known. On April 15th, 2019, tragedy struck when a fire broke out beneath the roof. Flames consumed the medieval timber framework. It seemed that one of humanity's greatest artistic achievements might be lost forever. Investigators didn't fully discover the cause. It could either be a lit cigarette, or faulty wiring. But thankfully, the stone vaults beneath the roof prevented much of the fire from spreading into the interior. Notre Dame has undergone one of the most ambitious restoration projects in modern history, and it officially reopened in December of 2024. Please consider a like, a follow, or a subscribe. And to learn more about my work, visit my website at rainershanstudios.com. This may be the most famous kiss in all of art, but have you ever wondered what was the first kiss depicted in the history of art? It's this one, painted by the artist Giotto. And this image will serve as an introduction to an era in art that we call the Proto-Renaissance. The Middle Ages era is coming to an end. The philosophical idea of humanism has taken hold. The idea of being steeped in art and culture. A human-centered approach that was different from the Middle Ages. The texts, thoughts, and philosophies of the ancient Greeks and Romans were being rediscovered. For centuries, European painting had followed the Byzantine tradition. Figures floating in shimmering gold backgrounds. Large ornate altar pieces like this one by Cimabue were ever-present in churches, and people would pray underneath them. And then in 1300, the According to legend, the painter Cimabue discovered Giotto as a shepherd boy. He was drawing sheep on rocks so convincingly that he immediately took him on as an apprentice. Let's compare this altar piece painting by Cimabue. Mary and the baby Christ feel flat. The throne that she sits on has some depth, but not a whole lot. The facial expressions are fairly emotionless. Now let's compare it to his student, Giotto. In Giotto's altar piece, we see the The throne feels more three-dimensional. Giotto creates the illusion that her knees actually protrude out into space, and there's a sense of form to the figures. When you look at their faces, their hands, their cheeks, there's a wonderful three-dimensionality about them. One of Giotto's masterpieces can be found in the Arena Chapel, also known as the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova. Instead of flat, emotionless figures, Giotto fills the walls with people who grieve, embrace, celebrate, and mourn. The figures in Giotto's paintings have weight. They cast shadows. In the Lamentation, the Virgin Mary cradles the lifeless body of Christ, while the apostles collapse in sorrow around them. Even the angels in the sky are twisting and turning in anguish. Giotto was showing us that painting could convey emotions, intense feelings, and depth of character so that we, as the viewers, connected. We see a new sense of naturalism, and the spaces are becoming convincing. The landscapes push back into the distance. The real world is being observed and rendered in paint. In Giotto's painting Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate, we see the parents of the Virgin Mary. They've just learned they're going to have a child. This fresco painting demonstrates Giotto's ability to show subtle emotions. The couple have a tender embrace and a kiss, while the onlookers are genuinely happy for the event that's about to take place. In this kiss, Giotto transformed religious painting from symbolic storytelling into psychological drama. Now, we'll move ahead to the High Renaissance. Thank you for the likes, follows, and subscribes. If you'd like to see my painting, go to my website at RenishanStudios.com. Imagine winning an art competition, and then changing the future of Welcome to the early Renaissance, the year is 1400. The city government of Florence is having a competition to design some panels for some doors in front of a church. The word Renaissance means rebirth, and the city of Florence was filled with wealthy merchants, ambitious artists, and fierce competition. What was being reborn were the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and a new way of seeing the world was being invented. The city government had a problem. They built a gigantic cathedral, but it didn't have a dome. It was just open. Architect Filippo Brunelleschi was asked to complete the massive cathedral. There was one problem. He didn't know how to build a dome that huge. Brunelleschi took inspiration from the ancient Romans, specifically the Pantheon. He solved this problem by designing an ingenious double-shelled dome that could support itself as it was built. Completed in 1436, it became the largest masonry dome in the world. Brunelleschi had created the visual icon for the city of Florence. Legend also says Brunelleschi rediscovered the mathematical rules of linear perspective, opening the way for artists to create convincing three-dimensional space on a flat surface. Now, across from the church is the baptistry, a small octagonal building, and in 1401, artists competed to design doors for this baptistry. To compete, artists had to create one small sample panel to be judged, and the two finalists were Brunelleschi and an artist named Ghiberti. The subject matter was the sacrifice of Isaac. God was testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son. Each artist took a very unique approach to the subject. First, let's look at Brunelleschi's panel. It has a raw dramatic intensity and a naturalistic sense of human emotion. He captures the violent struggle at the exact moment of the angel's intervention by grabbing Abraham's arm. The winner was the artist Ghiberti, and this is his panel. The judges said that it had a sense of grace and lyrical elegance. The bodies are more idealized and show a direct reference to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Lorenzo Ghiberti was the winner, and you can see his head sticking out of the panel there, looking at his beautiful doors. The doors are located directly across from the main doors of the cathedral. The artist created 10 gilded panels that combined sculpture, architecture, and perspective into richly detailed biblical scenes. There were figures that were overlapping. There were landscapes that receded into the distance, and the relief panels demonstrated a new confidence, a new sense of realism and naturalism. These doors changed the course of western art history. They were so extraordinary that Michelangelo is said to have called them the gates of paradise, a name that has endured ever since. Thanks for saying that, Mike, and we'll be sure to get to you in the next few episodes. Please like, follow, and subscribe. These videos take a lot of work, and that helps me keep this mission going. And check out my work at rainershanstudios.com. Before Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a handful of artists completely reinvented what art could be. Welcome back to the early Renaissance. The word Renaissance means rebirth. The ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans were in style, and it was all happening in Florence. The first of these great revolutionaries was Masaccio. He died tragically young, at the age of 26. In this fresco painting called the Tribute Money, Masaccio gives his figures convincing weight, a sense of natural light, and genuine emotion. He learned his visual lessons from Giotto. But, with the added ingredient of pictorial space, linear perspective is starting to play a factor here. Christ is with his disciples, while Judas the Betrayer is exchanging the money. The Holy Trinity, another fresco, is one of the earliest masterpieces to use linear perspective. Christ is on the cross, within a Roman arch. You can see the geometry, the triangle that the figures make, strong verticals and horizontals. A lot of good design is happening here, and it feels like you're peering into a real architectural space. This diagram shows the strong sense of one-point perspective. All roads lead to that vanishing point. There's a wonderful sense of design that's happening within this painting. Now, on to our first Ninja Turtle. Donatello was a sculptor and an architect, and we're going to focus on his image of David. His bronze David became the first freestanding nude sculpture created since antiquity. He uses contrapposto, more weight on one leg, less weight on the other. It makes for a glorious pose. The young hero David was a symbol of the city of Florence, and his foot rests atop the head of Goliath. Italy was divided into city-states, and Florence felt like the underdog compared to the big neighbors that surrounded it. They related to the figure of David. Donatello shows us that the human body is a worthy subject. There's a sense of swagger and confidence in the way he portrayed this David, who was only 13 or 14 years old when the event happened. Next comes Piero della Francesca. He's often called the mathematician of the Renaissance. Personally, I've always loved the hidden geometry within his compositions. In this painting, called The Baptism of Christ, Christ is a central figure, with Saint John by his side, and a strong verticality on his left of the tree. Each figure in the painting feels fully three-dimensional. The space pushes back into the landscape in the most lovely way. The colors are soft, and the lighting is cool. Then there's the mysterious Flagellation of Christ. It's one of the most debated paintings in art history. On the left of the composition, Christ is attached to a Roman column while being beaten, while on the right, money is being exchanged. While scholars debate the symbolism, one thing is for sure, the perspective is astonishing. Piero was showing us that geometry wasn't just for architects. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Art Movements You Should Know, Early Renaissance. Please give us a like, a subscribe, and a follow, and you can check out my work at rainershawnstudios.com. If you were walking the streets of early Renaissance Florence, you would have seen some pretty amazing things, specifically with artists. Linear perspective was being mastered. You can see it in the vanishing point beneath the feet of Christ. Artists were innovating things like foreshortening. In this painting, called The Dead Christ by Mantegna, he took on the visual challenge of showing a body in extreme foreshortening. Paintings started to have depth, real space. One artist was absorbing these lessons, and he translated that into the most beautiful paintings. Welcome to my series, Art Movements You Should Know. By the late 1400s, Florence had become the artistic capital of Europe, and no artist captured its elegance better than Sandro Botticelli. His most well-known painting is this one, The Birth of Venus. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she emerged fully formed from the sea. On the left, the wind god Zephyrus blows at her. The wind is shown from the radiating lines from his mouth. Holding onto Zephyrus is Aura, a personification of a light breeze. On the right is a figure who seems to be floating above the ground, and she holds out a rich cloak. She is one of the three Horae, or hours, a Greek minor god of the seasons. Another innovation is that Botticelli is breaking away from traditional Christian imagery. We're seeing that influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Although Renaissance artists showed mastery of anatomy, Venus's shoulder seems to be missing some bones. Yet, when we look back at the way the ancient Greeks and Romans portrayed Venus, we clearly see an artist who was aware of what came before. Now, working across town was the artist Verrocchio. Verrocchio was an early Italian Renaissance painter, but mostly sculptor. In the sculpture Christ and Saint Thomas, we see a strong sense of movement and dialogue. Christ's pose is passive. It has a regal quality, whereas Thomas seems agitated and nervous, with the great Renaissance moment of that one foot penetrating into our space. Let's look at one of Verrocchio's paintings. This one's called The Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist. This painting has an interesting secret, so bear with me. The image takes place on the banks of the Jordan River. There are two kneeling angels on the left. One holds Jesus's garment, and the other with its hands folded. While barefoot in the river, John the Baptist is clothed in robes with a halo over his head. He's holding a staff with a gold cross at the top as he pours the river water over Jesus's head. Renaissance artists had big workshops. There would be lots of apprentices. So, let me draw your attention to those two angels on the lower left. Notice anything unusual about that angel on the left side? If you look at her closely, she's beautifully painted and looks different from the rest of the painting. You're seeing the work of a very young, teenaged Leonardo da Vinci. He was working in Verrocchio's studio at the time. Legend has it when Verrocchio saw Leonardo's painting of this angel, he put his brushes down never to paint again. Thank you for the likes, follows, and subscribes. You can check out my work at Rain or Shine Studios. And then a boy in Tuscany. It's the late 1400s. He's climbing a hill. He wants to get to a high vantage point to see a storm approaching. He takes his sketchbook and something to draw with. The dark clouds sweep across the valley. Rain obscures the landscape, and there's flashes of lightning. Instead of simply admiring it, he made sketches. He made notes. He wanted to understand exactly how the storm behaved. Today, we're exploring the high renaissance, specifically by looking at the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. The term renaissance man is a good description of Leonardo. He was simply brilliant. He wanted to understand the world, and the way he did that was through his art, specifically his drawings. His artistic talents were recognized early. He was taken in by the renaissance artist Verrocchio to his workshop. He was allowed to paint one angel in a painting by the master. Verrocchio saw it, put his paintbrushes down, and said he'd never paint again. While most people associate him with this painting, which I promise we will spend time talking about, I find the best way to get to know the artist is through his sketchbook. We've now made our way to the high renaissance. At this point in the large trajectory of art, artists have started to master the techniques. Techniques around painting, sculpture, drawing. Now we're going to see artists who use those techniques to express deeper truths about humanity and nature. And Leonardo was front and center. Leonardo kept a series of notebooks. He never intended for them to be seen. He demonstrated his deep need to understand the world. Leonardo felt that to paint the human figure convincingly, you had to understand it from the inside out. Although it was illegal, he would pull in bodies from the morgue to dissect. His drawings are incredibly accurate. These drawings show that he was more than an artist. He was really quite the scientist. And the drawings are beautiful in their own right. They are lovingly rendered and shaded, very often with pen and ink. Leonardo also loved nature. He would draw detailed studies of plants. He was left-handed, and you can see how he would write in mirror handwriting, right to left. He was always inventing things, like a composite for a parachute. Powerful kings and dukes would keep him on staff. He could help them solve problems. He was constantly creating and designing weapons of war. As an artist, I think the biggest lesson I've learned from Leonardo da Vinci is that everything is tied together. If Leonardo was working on a painting that had a flowing river in it, he would research how water would flow. In this drawing, you can see he's analyzing the way water flows around a pier. Yet all of this research had a downside. Leonardo was a procrastinator, and it was difficult for him to finish paintings and commissions. He had such a level of imagination. It's truly all-inspiring. Thank you for the likes, follows, and subscribes. It really does make a difference. If you'd like to see some of my work, please head to my website at rainershinesstudios.com. Do you recognize this piece of wood? Believe it or not, it's iconic. Maybe the most iconic image anywhere in the history of art. The other side is this. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. We're in the high renaissance. Many people wonder why this portrait is so important. This is the view that she sees probably each day in the Louvre Museum in Paris. People fight and jostle just to get close to this painting, and then they walk away saying, what's the big deal? Why is this so important? It's a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It's more than a portrait. The longer you look, the more you'll see. Her smile seems to change and evolve as you look at it. The landscape behind her twists into an imagined world. The painting has faded over time and has taken some damage. It looks like she may be wearing a veil, and she doesn't have eyebrows. Leonardo mastered the sfumato technique. He blended tones so softly that there's almost no visible edges. He looks at us, the viewer. She's aware of herself, and she's aware of us. You can see the traits of the high renaissance. Art, science, philosophy, and observation. As I said earlier, she's taken some damage. You can see in this x-ray, someone threw a rock at her. He was stolen in 1911. An Italian disguised himself as a maintenance worker. He hid in a closet, walked up to it, took it off the wall, and rode his bicycle home. Paris was in a frenzy. This theft is part of what made the Mona Lisa the iconic image that it is today. It was rolled up in a garbage can when the police found it, and it was put on a goodwill tour through Italy. Leonardo epitomizes the term renaissance man. He was not only an artist, but he was a scientist. He wanted to understand everything about the world. In this painting called the Virgin of the Rocks, you see that harmonious triangle the composition of the figures makes. The Virgin's face demonstrates the sfumato technique. He shows his understanding of atmospheric perspective in the landscape far in the distance, the blue of those mountains. To Leonardo, everything was connected. His notebooks were filled with everything from studies of flying machines to human anatomy. Painted on the wall of a monastery dining hall in Milan, Leonardo's Last Supper captures the exact moment. The exact moment Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him. This fresco is also heavily damaged, but Leonardo's genius still shows through. You see that every apostle reacts differently. Composition uses one-point perspective to draw your eye directly to Christ. He made detailed studies of each of the central figure of Christ makes an equilateral triangle. He's the emotional center of the painting. He organized the disciples in groups of three. Some are shocked, some are angry, some are confused. Leonardo was changing the way that artists told stories. All of this accumulated knowledge and research manifests within the painting. The high renaissance within Leonardo's world represents perfect balance, beauty, and the full potential of human creativity. If you like our class and the many lessons in art history, please consider giving me a like, a follow, or a subscribe. You can check out my art at rainershawnstudios.com. A man wielding a geologist hammer jumped over a barrier in the Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. As people watched in horror, he attacked Michelangelo's famous sculpture, the Pietà. He landed 15 blows on the sculpture before being subdued. The damage was devastating. Mary's arm was broken, her nose was shattered, her eyelid badly damaged. Today we're talking about Michelangelo, and he's a giant of the movement, the high renaissance. He could do it all. He was a sculptor, a painter, an architect. He was only 24 when he created the Pietà. This marble sculpture shows Mary holding the dead body of Christ. The marble seems almost like skin, and it was carved from a single block of stone. It now sits in the Vatican behind bulletproof glass. It's one of the only pieces that Michelangelo ever created that he signed. His name is carved on a sash that runs across the front of Mary's robes. Unlike Leonardo, Michelangelo was prolific. It was only a few years later that he sculpted one of his most recognizable pieces, the David. The David versus Goliath story resonated with the Florentines, and Michelangelo chose to show us his David before the battle. There's a tension in his body as his eyes scan the distance, his brow is tightened, and every muscle is alive in anticipation. There's a strong sense of And also, like Leonardo, Michelangelo studied anatomy, and he dissected bodies in his studio. Ironically enough, Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor and not a painter, so it's only fitting that the most famous painted ceiling in history belongs to him. When Pope Julius II gave Michelangelo the commission to paint the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo didn't want it. The scale of the ceiling was enormous, and it was to depict the Old Testament of the Bible. It was supposed to take 12 years or more, and Michelangelo finished it in three. The painting conditions were terrible. It was hot, sweaty, and human, but he gave us one of the most famous set of hands in all of art history. God's finger almost touches Adam's as life surges into the first created human man. That moment represents the spark of life and humanity and our relationship with the divine. Michelangelo believed that the human body reflected divine perfection. In Michelangelo's work, every muscle, every gesture, every expression carries an incredible emotional and spiritual weight. Years later, he also painted the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, a painting called The Last Judgment. Then he returned later in life to design the dome, crowning achievement for the Vatican complex. Michelangelo lived to be 81 years old. His work never fails to take your breath away. He didn't just master sculpture, painting, and architecture, but he redefined what an artist could be. His work reached a standard that artists of future generations would admire and challenge and try to top. The High Renaissance is reaching its peak, but there's still one more artist to go. Thank you for the likes, the follows, and the shares. If you'd like to see my work, go to my website at rainershawnstudios.com. We've talked about Donatello, we've talked about Leonardo da Vinci, we've talked about Michelangelo, and now the fourth Ninja Turtle, Raphael. Welcome to my series called Art Movements You Should Know, and today we're finishing up the High Renaissance. When Raphael died way too young at the age of 37, at his funeral there were kings, popes, and Europe's wealthiest patrons. Rome was mourning as if they had lost a prince. While Leonardo gave us mystery and Michelangelo gave us power, Raphael gave us perfect balance. He was a child prodigy, and you can see it in this self-portrait that he drew when he was in his teens. He was younger and influenced by Leonardo and Michelangelo, and to me he absorbed their greatest qualities as artists. Probably his best-known work is the School of Athens, which is located here in the Vatican. As you know from previous episodes, the Renaissance revered and adored the ancient Greeks and Romans. The School of Athens is an imagined fantasy scene where all the great philosophers of ancient Greece gathered together. In the center of the fresco is Plato and Aristotle. Plato's on the left, and in a clever tribute to Leonardo da Vinci, he makes Plato's face resemble that of Leonardo's. While Raphael was working on this fresco, Michelangelo was busy in the Sistine Chapel working on his ceiling masterpiece. Legend had it that Raphael snuck in at night and saw the ceiling and was so impressed by it that he made sure Michelangelo was also included in his fresco. That figure on the left, who happens to live in the far right of the fresco, is Raphael's self-portrait as he looks at us, the viewer. On a larger scale, the painting represents two different ways of understanding truth. And jam-packed into this large, invented architectural space are people like Euclid, Pythagoras, and Socrates. Raphael had the knack of taking the typical religious scenes of the time and giving them a sense of grace. They had a touch of humanity and tenderness that Leonardo's and Michelangelo's didn't quite have. Another one of his masterpieces is this one, the Sistine Madonna. Unlike traditional depictions of the subject, the Virgin Mary appears to float on the clouds. Those beautiful green curtains are drawn back and she appears to be walking toward us holding the Christ Child. The figures are painted beautifully and there's a strong sense of radiant light that surrounds the figures. The Christ Child has a serious, almost foreboding expression. He's anticipating the suffering and sacrifice that await him. On the right side of the Virgin is Saint Barbara. She lowers her gaze in quiet humility. She's the patron saint of invoking a good death, reinforcing the painting's theme of salvation. And then there's the two bored cherubs at the bottom of the composition. They are among the most reproduced images in all of Western art. Everyone's grandma has it somewhere in her house. I also think it's worth taking a look at some of Raphael's drawings. They're just beautiful and they're so well done. I believe Raphael represents a sense of balance and that's what the High Renaissance was trying to attain. Thank you for the likes, for the follows, and for the subscribes. And maybe you can take a look at my art at rainershunstudios.com