Romanticism in History of Art - Essay Example

Raphael: A Precursor to Romance Raphael (1483-1520) is considered one of the great masters of the HighRenaissance for a variety of reasons. His style differed greatly from that of some of the other masters of the period such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, but he was equally masterful in his compositions and use of color and texture to attain a specific effect. He pushed the idea of naturalism further than it had been pushed before with his focus on composition, balance and unity. “A painting was no longer to be the mere portrayal of an event, but was to translate and interpret its subject-matter in its composition. The movement of the body was now understood as an analogy for the animation of the spirit or the emotions; the external structure of a scene proclaimed its inner content. Everything in the picture was aimed at harmonious balance; each individual figure became an inseparable part of the whole. In this lies Raphael’s significant contribution to the painting of the High Renaissance” (Toman, 1998: 14). In his deviations from the older masters, Raphael introduced some of the concepts that would later coalesce into an artistic movement during the 18th century known as Romanticism. These early traces of Romanticism are evident in paintings such as the “Madonna of the Chair”, a 28” x 28” oil on canvas painting in which the image itself appears in the round as well as in “The School of Athens” in which he emphasizes the importance of communication and debate in developing cultural ideas. Before the concepts of Romanticism can be applied to Raphael’s art, they must be clearly understood. Rather than being full of moon-eyed gentlemen worth little more than spouting flowery phrases all the time, this period in time was actually very concerned with a new liberalism in all things, making it a difficult term to pin down. “Walter Pater thought the addition of strangement to beauty (the neoclassicists having insisted on order in beauty) constituted the romantic temper. An interesting schematic explanation calls romanticism the predominance of imagination over reason and formal rules (classicism) and over the sense of fact or the actual (realism)” (Holman & Harmon, 2001: 4). Characteristics of the genre identified by Welleck (2003) include a “revolt against the principles of neo-classicism criticism, the rediscovery of older English literature, the turn toward subjectivity and the worship of external nature slowly prepared during the eighteenth century and stated boldly in Wordsworth and Shelley” (196). The period idolized the imagination as the highest of human capacities due largely in part to its creative abilities and as a means of reacting to sweeping change in every aspect of life. It also esteemed nature not only because of the creative element inherent in it, but also because of the manifestation of the imagination that could be found within it in the sense that we create what we see. The world was full of symbols and signs that would portend future events and actions which were knowable through their relationship to the myths and legends of antiquity. As it is examined by Honour (1979), Romanticism focused on an examination of spiritual and enlightened thought through the world of the imaginary and symbolic, eventually giving birth to the Modern period and Surrealism. The emphasis on the imagination and the concept of signs and symbols is evident within Raphael’s “Madonna of the Chair” (1514) primarily in its unusual format. The round shape of the image immediately draws attention to it because it is not in the traditional squared off space of the majority of images we see. Broken down to its most basic form, the space is filled with opposing U-shapes as they curve around each other. These include the line of the Madonna’s body as it curves around the U of the baby Jesus. Movement is suggested in the repeated Us of the Madonna’s blue knees and the imagined U of the young John as he extends out of the viewable space. This space remains very shallow, emphasizing the sense of intimacy the nestled Us suggest while the curved nature of the outer frame reinforces the concept of the female and the natural. The modeled forms of the figures themselves, the plump roundness of the baby’s legs, the ovals of the faces and eyes and the subtle curvature of every line devote themselves to an appreciation of the feminine form. The balance seems slightly off-center to the upper left, as if the Madonna is actually reclining and adding a further sense of casual intimacy. The eye is invited to travel freely about the image, but the vibrancy of the center area continues to draw the eye in a tight spiral contained by the stripes on Mary’s sleeve, the line of her arm, the direction of John’s eyes leading back to the heads of Mary and Jesus. Raphael’s painting gains impact through its use of high value color, introducing vibrant yellows, reds and blues that appeal to the eye and convey a sense of richness and life. The colors are brightest toward the center of the painting, tending to draw the eye to an area near the shoulder of the baby Jesus. This gives that degree of separation between the viewer and the image that conveys the sense of royalty in that the viewer can never quite comfortably meet the gaze of the mother or child. The large blocks of primary color appeal to our basic instincts while the texture and flow of the garments help to makes us feel at home. The painting is at once settling as well as thrilling on an elemental level introduced through the many diagonals. In constructing his painting in this way, Raphael pulls at the imagination to suggest the concepts of motherhood just as he utilized the symbolism of the curved shape. Raphael masterfully employed the techniques of painting to capture the essence of motherhood within this painting. His use of curved and nestled forms provides a sense of comfort and security while the soft diagonals formed by the character’s arms and legs invoke a sense of excitement and energy. The slightly off-balance feel to the painting and gentle textures give the painting a sense of a casual moment of family-time while the distracting elements of color pull the viewer’s eye away from any attempt at making direct eye contact with the deities. The primary colors used in the painting provides a sense of the elemental and pulls at our basic knowledge while the introduction of pattern in Mary’s shawl and headpiece again introduce a sense of life and energy. The shallow space at once invites intimacy and repels from becoming too close. The final result is an impression that one is observing a true likeness of the characters, perhaps as they are sitting behind a piece of glass. They are available, but also just out of reach. They are real, but also somehow not on our level of reality. Despite all this, the softness of the mother surrounds us, envelops us as she envelops her child, and all the love and comfort of the world can be found in that embrace. Moving beyond the simple image of family and the shallow depth of the mother and child, Raphael also captures the idea of imagination and willful refutation of reason in his depiction of the “School of Athens” (1510-1511). In this painting, several of the world’s most influential thinkers are depicted within a single setting and time frame. The painting is often considered one of the finest examples of the High Renaissance style. In this painting, Raphael created a balance between the horizontal space of the architecture and the movement of the figures, each of which has his own unique stance and gestures. These all seem completely natural yet the harmonious way in which each groups leads to the next continues to bring the focal point back to Plato and Aristotle at the point of convergence. The painting highlights the close connection between art, literature, science and technological mastery that developed as an integral part of Renaissance thinking. Although the painting is often considered a prime example of Classicism, which is itself often considered the opposite of Romanticism, Raphael’s interpretation includes as much of the romantic ideals of symbolism, naturalism and mysticism as it does reason, rationality and mathematical construction. “The Stanza della Segnatura (School of Athens) … by the very juxtaposition of its scenes, displays a scheme for living. Rational Truth does not confront Divine Truth in the sense of wishing to oppose it, nor is Artistic Truth opposed to Moral Truth as divined by Justice. Rather, all four elements echo each other, and indeed are shown to be related by the placing of particular figures” (Greenhalgh, 1978: 14-15). In the center of the painting, taking prominence by their very position, Raphael painted the philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Plato typically represents a more mystical approach to the world while Aristotle represents a more rational approach. In placing them here with neither philosopher taking precedence over the other, Raphael seems to be attempting to straddle the ideas of Rationalism and Romanticism centuries before the formalized artistic periods were recognized. Although Raphael lived and worked nearly two centuries before the advent of the artistic period today referred to as Romanticism, his unique approach to his subjects reveal elements of the later period and begin to call into question the relationship between ideas. As has been discussed above, the period of Romanticism is largely characterized by an emphasis upon the imagination, spiritualism, symbolism and a freedom from the purely rational and factual elements of life. These elements are seen in the “Madonna of the Chair” as Raphael uses imagination, spirituality and symbolism to capture the essence of the maternal as well as in the “School of Athens” as he blends historical figures into the same time period to illustrate how the concepts of imagination, spirituality, symbolism and freedom from the purely rational do not necessarily exclude the concepts of reason and geometry more commonly associated with the ideals of Classicism. As this discussion illustrates, just because a particular period is more associated with certain ideas or concepts, these concepts are not necessarily limited only to a single time period but were often elements of other forms of expression. Works Cited Greenhalgh, Michael. The Classical Tradition in Art. London: 1978. Holman, C. Hugh & Harmon, William. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Harvard University Press, 2001. Honour, Hugh. Romanticism. Westview Press, 1979. Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art through the Ages. Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. Toman, Rolf. The Art of the Italian Renaissance: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Drawing. New York: Konemann, 1998. Wellek, Rene. “Romanticism in Literature.” Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, (2003). Read More