I have made a concerted effort to up my drawing output in the past few months. This was initially due to a bout of covid which was debilitating, but also to hopefully get a greater urgency into my studio work, as a consequence. I have frequently made studies of Raphael’s work and was keen to get to see this major show. A trip to Rome had been planned to see the 500 year celebration show but again covid derailed that. So it was good to finally get to see some of these works in the flesh.
Raphael is such a technically advanced and skilled artist and I particularly respond to the nuances he gets in his surfaces, for example: adding marble dust to pigments to differentiate between fabric and flesh, or the way he under-paints layers using complementary or triadic colour relationships. He is a well to go to, to learn about painting.
His drawings are remarkable. also. You can see how he increases the volume of forms to give them a greater significance and visual presence: evident in portraits and horses ( in particular). There was much to marvel at and the increase in achievement was evident as he moved to Rome and really upped his ambitions. As if he looked at Michelangelo and thought, ”I can beat that”.
The Holy family from the Prado was an amazingly taut and tense construction. The Washington Madonna, a perfectly balanced tondo, with the most delicate colour - just the colour on the virgin’s shoe was a revelation. The vision of Ezekiel was startlingly small yet powerfully dramatic, with such a complexity of colour and form with dramatic tonal shifts.. Something that Tintoretto would attempt to do on a vast scales. Several of the later portraits were breathtakingly controlled in their colour.
Coming out of the show into the room with Titians it was noticeable that there was a drop in intensity. Raphael’s best works have such an internal pressure about them - every single instance of paint colour is honed to a refined certainty. The word grace is used, as is effortlessness when describing his work, but this can mask the astounding preparation and supporting work that goes on behind the scenes. To get to this level in such a short space of time and at so young an age was really remarkable. A fantastic legacy.