Portrait of an Artist

  Photos from Royal Collection Raphael’s "Saint Paul
Rending His Garments" is one of the works from the "Raphael and His
Influence Across the Centuries" exhibition now on display at the J.
Paul Getty Museum.

By Carolyn Brown
Daily Bruin Contributor

Artistic genius may be inherent at birth, but overall greatness
is a combination of talent, skill and hard work. Raphael was an
artistic genius of the Italian Renaissance as well as a model of
true greatness.

Raphael incorporated astonishing technique through his extremely
detailed renditions of the human form, and through his organized,
efficient management of a large workshop. This allowed him to
become a model for successful artists of the Italian Renaissance
and beyond, henceforth creating his “greatness.”

“Raphael and His Circle,” a remarkable display of
drawings and paintings by Raphael, his mentors and his students, is
currently on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum. This collection
of 66 drawings and paintings on loan from the Royal Collection of
the monarchs of Great Britain, which is usually housed at Windsor
Castle, represents a wide variety of Raphael’s work.

The drawings range from human forms he did as an apprentice, to
a wall-sized painting, or fresco, that he did for The Vatican
Library.

During the Italian Renaissance, aspiring artists received their
training as apprentices under a master who taught the young artist
in their workshop, usually in exchange for money or labor.
Raphael’s earliest study was under his father, Giovanni
Santi, and his mentor, Pietro Perugino, in Urbino, part of central
Italy. The exhibit tells the story of Raphael’s
apprenticeship and education through the display of some of his
early works alongside those of his father and mentor. The exhibit
shows Raphael’s early development of his own style.

“Raphael and His Circle,” also provides more mature
drawings from 1504, when Raphael traveled to Florence, the heart of
the Italian Renaissance. Here, he was exposed to the works of
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

During this time, Raphael’s art went through a period of
exponential growth in which his skills improved rapidly as he
experimented with the arrangement of human figures in groups.
Drawings from this period that are on display provide insight into
his developing artistic genius.

  "Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus," a painting by
Nicolas Poussin is part of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s current
"Raphael and His Influence Across the Centuries" exhibition from
the Italian Renaissance. Usually during the Italian Renaissance,
artists worked under the commission of someone of great wealth due
to the economics of the period. But Raphael was somewhat of an
exception. The Roman Catholic Church commissioned a vast majority
of art created during this time. So, in 1508 at the age of 25,
Raphael’s talent allowed him to secure a commission with Pope
Julius II in Rome.

There, he painted frescos on the walls of The Vatican Library,
one of which is the centerpiece in this exhibit. The Getty also has
on display, a number of Raphael’s careful studies of human
forms which were the background “research” for the
great paintings and frescos he did under the Pope’s
commission.

For instance, “Three Graces” is an exquisite drawing
of three nude women standing in a group reaching out to a man. The
beauty lies in the realism of the drawing and the way the bodies
are composed together by Raphael.

The drawings he did for the Pope are important, both for the
viewer to understand the “homework” that went into
Raphael’s paintings, as well as to serve as artifacts of the
process under which he worked.

Raphael’s success as a painter under the Pope’s
commission allowed him to manage his own large and bustling
workshop full of assistants and apprentices. “Raphael and His
Circle” contains some of the drawings that were the
painstakingly worked out guides Raphael provided for his assistants
who worked to create the large frescos that adorned The
Vatican.

“The Disputa,” the centerpiece of this exhibition,
is a replica painting of the fresco which is thought to be the
first of Raphael’s Vatican frescos. The bold colors and
intricate, realistic detail of the scene with Christ and other
biblical figures on a cloud beneath God, is characteristic of
Renaissance religious paintings, and accentuates Raphael’s
talent.

Raphael’s influence on art, even after his death in 1520,
is due in part, to his skills as a manager and a teacher. His
influence on three students ““ Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga
and Polidoro da Caravaggio ““ is illustrated with a display of
the drawings of these three men made during and after their
association with Raphael. For instance, Polidoro’s human
figures show the technical skills he learned from Raphael, while
maintaining his own expressive style.

“Raphael and His Circle” brings a little bit of Rome
to Los Angeles, and provides an excellent excuse for a midterm
break and to spend a day at the Getty.

ART: “Raphael and His Circle: Drawings from Windsor
Castle” is on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum through
Jan. 7. Parking is $5 and students do not need to make
reservations. For information call (310) 440-7300.