The School of Athens by Raphael Sanzio, 1509ñ1510

 

 

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The Schools of Athens is set as in a Gothic altarpiece the side exposed to view on ordinary days with its grey coloring containing a promise of the interior, whilst the side reserved for festival days displays gold and colour in fulfillment of this promise. So the radiant glorification of the Sacrament (in La Disputa) is placed opposite to the grey tones of Philosophy.

All that gives, in the Disputa, an effect of oscillation and suspense is, in The School of Athens, at rest; a stratum of heads and figures appears like smoke above the ground. Thus the painter strikes his chords: in the Disputa a uniform movement is dominant, here we have a throng of disputants, even though there is no lack of clarity, for the ideas are full of sublimity that are being explored and discovered beneath this proudly soaring vault.

And they are sublime figures that have been built up on such conceptions; in their bearing they resemble noble vessels to hold the noble content of their ideas. It is Dante's "filosofica familia" of the wise, in The Inferno, that here streams over the tilework steps:

They form themselves into groups, gather in clusters, exploring, discussing, construing, writing. But suddenly, in the midst of all the throng, one group becomes clearly dominant to the eye. They line up, where a space opens down to the ground in front of the sublime pair that come stepping forward out of the recess, attending only to one another and both full of the loftiest ideas, Plato and Aristotle.

Here also it has been asked to whom Raphael was indebted for the scheme. Yet whoever this may be, Raphael's achievement in giving pictorial form to philosophy could only have been the result of a culture innate and developed. From childhood up, he was a familiar figure in the Ducal Palace at Urbino, and to Italians of the Renaissance such as he, these great philosophers signified not authors of books but creators of a way of living. Thus everything that furthered humanistic cultivation of life, which then meant cultivation with a view to the dignity of man, was here in The School of Athens, consummated in this pair of figures as they went on their way unimpeded beneath the lofty vaults of the hall.

Plato directs his movements towards the heights, in his yearning to participate once more in the origin from which he sprang. Aristotle on the other hand stands facing the world like a man, and a man who is an architect. At the moment he is here, and this is to be the scene of his creative activity. In him we see the perfect cortegiano. They step forward, seen against the background of the great open arch; everything leads the eye towards them ó the lines of the pavement, the cornices of the vault, the gaze of the disciples, just as in The Last Supper, Christ, in front of the window, draws every line towards himself.

Clear above all the seekers stand out these two discoverers of what can make men noble and good, that is, fit to be exemplars and dignified in their attitude towards life. No learned adviser could have communicated to Raphael the inspiration for the sweeping stride of Plato and his heavenward gesture, nor for the bearing of Aristotle, to whom belong life and earth, free and bold and noble-minded, and yet mindful of the appearance he presents. Let us ask ourselves what this hand signifies ó no seizing of what is earthly, but rather the gesture of the conductor of an orchestra when as "master" he checks the swell of a crescendo or a gesture of moderation, the golden mean that is the central idea of his Nicomachean Ethics. There he stands, body and mind in equilibrium, even to his garments, the masculine ideal of those times, ancestor of many a later type in art and life.

Print DIGG MIXX!

Raphael Sanzio "The School of Athens - detail" (1509ñ1510) The Apostolic Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican

Raphael Sanzio "The School of Athens - detail" (1509ñ1510) The Apostolic Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican

Raphael Sanzio "The School of Athens - detail" (1509ñ1510) The Apostolic Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican

Raphael Sanzio "The School of Athens - detail" (1509ñ1510) The Apostolic Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican

  

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