Raphael Santi Sistine Madonna analysis of the painting. Raphael's masterpiece Sistine Madonna

The circumstances of the life of the author of the picture. Brief biographical information about the life of the artist Raphael. The main theme and idea of "The Sistine Madonna". The genre and style of the canvas, the artistic meaning of the sky and space. The plot of the picture and the main task of the work.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru

Rafael Santi - “Sistine Madonna” (Italian: Madonna Sistina)

Circumstances of the recipient's life

The number of styles and trends is huge. The key feature by which works can be grouped into styles is the common principles of artistic thinking. Styles in art do not have clear boundaries; they smoothly transform into one another and are in continuous development, mixing and opposition. Within the framework of one historical artistic style, a new one is always born, and that, in turn, passes into the next.

For me, the style of almost every era is of interest, but I will highlight the more remarkable ones, such as the style of the Renaissance (Renaissance), Baroque, Classicism and Romanticism. The Renaissance is famous for such great artists as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo. Despite the fact that this era was completely fleeting, the most famous works were created during this time. What is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa worth?

The style of the Baroque era attracts me with its riot, a certain disorder, and saturation. Artists of this era D. Velazquez, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Vermeer Jan and others.

Classicism was based on the traditions of the Renaissance. But it is tougher, drier and more calculating than the Renaissance style. It was presented by Jacques Baptiste Chardin, Karl Bryullov, Nicolas Poussin and others.

What I like about Romanticism is individualism. For myself, I will single out such artists as Friedrich Caspar, John Constable, Ivan Aivazovsky, Delacroix.

Raphael's painting "The Sistine Madonna" is for me the most outstanding painting of this era. She is beautiful and pure, but full of mysteries.

Circumstances of the author's life

Nature brought Raphael as a gift to the world when it wanted to be defeated not only by art, but also by good morals. His outstanding achievements were in no way inferior to his personal charm. It was in him that such strong zeal, beauty, modesty and no small talent shone.

Raphael Santi was born in 1483. He studied painting with his father, the artist Giovanni Santi, but already at a young age he ended up in the workshop of the outstanding artist Pietro Perugino. It was the artistic language and imagery of Perugino’s paintings, with their attraction to a symmetrical, balanced composition, clarity of spatial solutions and softness in color and lighting, that had a primary influence on the style of the young Raphael.

Early works (“Madonna Conestabile”, ca. 1502-1503) are imbued with grace and soft lyricism. The earthly existence of man, the harmony of spiritual and physical strength glorified the Vatican stanza (rooms) in the paintings (1509-1517), achieving an impeccable sense of proportion, rhythm, proportions, euphony of color, unity of figures and majestic architectural backgrounds.

In Florence, having come into contact with the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo, Raphael learned from them the anatomically correct depiction of the human body. At the age of 25, the artist ends up in Rome, and from that moment the period of the highest flowering of his creativity begins: he performs monumental paintings in Vatican Palace(1509--1511), among which the master’s undisputed masterpiece is the fresco “ Athens school", writes altar compositions and easel paintings, distinguished by the harmony of concept and execution, works as an architect (for some time Raphael even directed the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral). In a tireless search for his ideal, embodied for the artist in the image of the Madonna, he creates his most perfect creation - the “Sistine Madonna” (1513), a symbol of motherhood and self-denial. Raphael's paintings and murals were recognized by his contemporaries, and Santi soon became a central figure in the artistic life of Rome. The artist died at the age of thirty-seven in 1520.

The main theme of the work, idea

The painting “The Sistine Madonna” by Raphael Santi was originally created by the great painter as an altarpiece for the Church of San Sisto in Piacenza.

The main altar, for which the painting was commissioned, was dedicated to Pope Sixtus II, executed in the 3rd century by the Roman emperor, and Saint Barbara, according to legend, an extraordinary beauty who was beheaded for Christian faith own father. (Varvara is considered a protector from sudden death, and her relics, by the way, are kept in the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv.) The customer of the canvas was Pope Julius II himself.

In the painting, the artist depicts the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, Pope Sixtus II and Saint Barbara. In Renaissance painting, this is perhaps the deepest and most beautiful embodiment of the theme of motherhood. For Rafael Santi, it was also a kind of result and synthesis of many years of research in the topic closest to him. Raphael wisely used here the possibilities of a monumental altar composition, the view of which opens in the distant perspective of the church interior immediately, from the moment the visitor enters the temple. From a distance, the motif of an opening curtain, behind which, like a vision, a Madonna appears walking on the clouds with a child in her arms, should give the impression of captivating power. The gestures of Saints Sixtus and Barbara, the upward gaze of the angels, the general rhythm of the figures - everything serves to attract the viewer’s attention to the Madonna herself.

Compared with the images of other Renaissance painters and with the previous works of Raphael, the painting “The Sistine Madonna” reveals an important new quality - increased spiritual contact with the Viewer. There is something in the gaze of the Sistine Madonna that seems to allow us to look into her soul. It would be an exaggeration to talk here about the increased psychological expression of the image, about the emotional effect, but in the slightly raised eyebrows of the Madonna, in the wide-open eyes - and her gaze itself is not fixed and difficult to catch, as if she is looking not at us, but past or through us , - there is a shade of anxiety and the expression that appears in a person when his fate is suddenly revealed to him. It’s like a providence of the tragic fate of her son and at the same time a readiness to sacrifice him. The drama of the mother’s image is highlighted in its unity with the image of the infant Christ, whom the artist endowed with childlike seriousness and insight. It is important, however, to note that with such a deep expression of feeling, the image of the Madonna is devoid of even a hint of exaggeration and exaltation - its harmonic basis is preserved in it, but, unlike Raphael’s previous creations, it is more enriched with shades of hidden emotional movements. And, as always with Raphael, the emotional content of his images is unusually clearly embodied in the very plasticity of his figures. The painting “The Sistine Madonna” provides a clear example of the peculiar “multi-meaning” of the simplest movements and gestures inherent in Raphael’s images. Thus, the Madonna herself appears to us as simultaneously moving forward and standing still; her figure seems to float easily in the clouds and at the same time has the real weight of a human body. In the movement of her hands carrying the baby, one can discern the instinctive impulse of a mother hugging her child to herself, and at the same time the feeling that her son does not belong only to her, that she is carrying him as a sacrifice to people. The high figurative content of such motifs distinguishes Raphael from many of his contemporaries and artists of other eras who considered themselves his followers, and who often hid nothing but an external effect behind the ideal appearance of their characters.

Contents: Of the many infant souls circling in the sky, one materializes and becomes a baby. The inexorable cloud of time carries the mother and baby onto the stage of life, with its illnesses, insults, surprises, anxieties and losses. The mother's fear of the unknown and the inability to forever keep her son near her and protect him from harm. You can avoid, says religion in the person of the old pope, many troubles, losses, anxieties, if you follow the path of God, his commandments, his example. High spiritual precepts will support the inexperienced soul throughout life path. Live, says the lovely girl and the earth, with joys and madness, hobbies and disappointments, live an earthly life, you born of the earth. Do not reject the spiritual wisdom of the old man, but combine it with creativity, arts, beauty, feelings, with the love of earthly beautiful women, and this is the second wisdom of life.

Two service-detached, habitually indifferent angels will accept the soul that has left its corruptible earthly shell, having lived the long life of a former chubby baby, and he will again join the endless whirlpool of ghostly blue heavenly heads-souls.

Raphael borrowed the idea and composition of the Sistine Madonna from Leonardo, but this is also a generalization of his own life experience, images and reflections on the Madonnas, a place of religion.

Jeanp, style

During the Renaissance (Renaissance), the art of a new artistic style was born. This style resurrects the ideals of antiquity, contrasting them with canonical religious forms of art. He gravitates towards clarity, harmony, physicality, balance, symmetry, and focus on man as the measure of things. But rehabilitation ancient art, borrowing its architectural and sculptural forms, imitation of it, restoration of ancient monuments - this is only one side of the Renaissance. The main thing is the desire to revive spiritual-physical harmony. This desire, however, goes far beyond the ancient understanding of man and the world. The art of the Renaissance embodies the many times expanded range of vital interests of a European who went through the school of Christian cultivation of a spiritual field.

The aesthetics of the Renaissance in its full development, Renaissance classics, appears firsthand in the art of Raphael, classical by definition, like the ancient Greeks. Of course, the same can be said about the work of Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the highest representatives of the Venetian school, while noting certain features, but only Raphael is exemplary in clarity, high simplicity and sincerity of poetics and style. For him alone, the sublimity of ideas and forms contains an intimate, purely human and purely poetic content. He is a classic of the classics, like Praxiteles, Mozart or Pushkin.

The culture of the Renaissance was not mass and geographically widespread. She was “spot on”. In a very narrow space and in a very short time, an aristocratic artistic fraternity arose, which made a discovery in art and disintegrated, transferring the tradition to another “point.” Suffice it to say that the “High Renaissance” (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and their students) lasted only a few decades in a few cities in Italy.

The decline of the harmonic period in painting and sculpture in one country passes into the dawn of Renaissance drama in another.

The Renaissance style was unstable. The decisive majority of Europeans lived in a pre-Renaissance cultural environment. But the legacy of the geniuses of the Renaissance was the material that would be sown and grown in the fields of art until our century, being the source of great artistic styles, the existence of which is possible only if there is a prepared mass public.

Color and time

Artistic meaning: Madonna descends from the sky. From the blue sky. Not literally to the ground yet, but from the blue. And this is a breakthrough. Because in the Middle Ages “the golden color of the background on the icon... for the viewer of that time quite believably conveys the color of heaven”

And look closely at the blue - natural for us today - Raphael's sky. It's all full of faces of unborn souls! - Here's a contradiction for you. The collision in one image of two worlds: ours and another, provides catharsis. Which can be interpreted as a harmony of earthly and heavenly.

The same with the appearance of Madonna. This is a barefoot peasant woman, frightened by attention to herself, with a frightened baby, whom she presses tightly - out of fright - to her (the baby’s right shoulder rose up from this and he pressed his right arm tightly to his mother, the lock was made so that he they didn’t take it away from her. And this peasant woman walks with timid steps towards us. But her fear is not aroused by some kind of supersensible foresight. weak woman and knows life like everyone else.

This is on the one hand. And on the other hand, She floats. At a speed much greater than her steps provide. Because of this, matter behaves completely contradictory. From the stream of wind that brings Her in, the curtain rolls towards us, the heavy hem of the papal vestment begins to swell like sails, and the hem of St. Barbara’s dress and cape fly off. And, on the other hand, Madonna is carried by some other force, forcing her to overcome air resistance. And the brown cape of the Madonna and the lower flaps of Her blue cloak billow back.

And from the collision - an ideal: not raising the value of a person to a divine category (which would be pride, blasphemy), but the harmony of the physical and spiritual.

After all, its laws had already been discovered by the time of Raphael’s work. And they demand that there be a single vanishing point for the whole picture. And Raphael made three of them: for the angels below, for Pope Sixtus II and St. Barbara in the middle, and for the Madonna. There are three horizons for the viewer's eyes. And the viewer seems to float up. Soars with soul.

And at the same time, at each level, the bodies are depicted in a way that only he, the viewer, can see, a person standing on the floor in front of the picture, without lifting his feet from the floor in order to appear in turn at each level.

And the eyes, accustomed to reading from left to right, slide from below, from the angels, up first over the figure of the Pope, then to the face of the Madonna, along her swollen and curved cape down to Barbara, who in turn looks even lower, at the right angel, which is lower than the left . And from there the eyes are drawn to what is higher. And up again. And so again in a circle. This most perfect geometric figure.

Composition: The composition of the “Sistine Madonna” is simple at first glance. In reality, this is apparent simplicity, because general construction The painting is based on unusually subtle and at the same time strictly verified relationships of volumetric, linear and spatial motifs, imparting grandeur and beauty to the painting. Her impeccable balance, devoid of artificiality and schematism, does not in the least hinder the freedom and naturalness of the figures’ movements. The figure of Sixtus, dressed in a wide robe, for example, is heavier than the figure of Varvara and is located slightly lower than her, but the curtain above Varvara is heavier than above Sixtus, and thereby the necessary balance of masses and silhouettes is restored. Such a seemingly insignificant motif, like the papal tiara, placed in the corner of the picture on the parapet, has great figurative and compositional significance, introducing into the picture that share of the feeling of the earthly firmament that is required to give the heavenly vision the necessary reality. The expressiveness of Raphael Santi’s melodious lines is sufficiently evidenced by the contour of the Madonna’s figure, powerfully and freely outlining her silhouette, full of beauty and movement.

Time: Raphael created the Sistine Madonna around 1516. By this time, he had already painted many paintings depicting the Mother of God. Very young Raphael became famous as amazing master and the incomparable poet of the image of the Madonna. The St. Petersburg Hermitage houses the Conestabile Madonna, which was created by a seventeen-year-old artist. In the Pitti Gallery there is his “Madonna in an Armchair”, in the Prado Museum - “Madonna with a Fish”, in Vatican Pinakothek-- “Madonna del Foligno”, other Madonnas have become treasures of other museums. But when the time came to write his main work, Raphael left numerous works to his students in the Vatican Palace in order to paint with his own hands an altarpiece for the monastery church of St. Sixtus in distant Piacenza.

Many suggest that Raphael wrote The Sistine Madonna at a time when he himself was experiencing severe grief. And therefore he put all his sadness into the divine face of his Madonna - the most perfect embodiment of the ideal in Christianity. He created the most beautiful image of the Mother of God, combining in it the features of the highest religious ideality with the highest humanity.

Altarpieces were then painted on boards, but Raphael painted this Madonna of his on canvas. At first, the “Sistine Madonna” was located in the semicircular choir of the monastery church (now defunct), and the towering figure of Our Lady from afar seemed to be floating in the air. In 1754, the painting was acquired by King Augustus III of Saxony and brought to his Dresden residence. The court of the Saxon electors paid 20,000 sequins for it - a considerable sum for those times. And now, when visitors to the famous Gallery come closer to the painting, they are more strongly overwhelmed by a new impression. The Mother of God no longer floats in the air, but seems to be walking towards you.

Raphael Sistine Madonna

The plot of the picture and the main task of the work

The painting shows a woman with a child, but this is not just a woman, this is a maiden holding a blessed child in her arms. Her tender and at the same time sad look seems to know what a thankless future awaits her son. The child, on the contrary, is full of life, strength and energy, which is very clearly visible from his constitution.

The mother reverently and tenderly holds her son in her arms, pressing his naked body closer to herself, as if trying to protect him from all the troubles that life brings us. In the picture, the woman is depicted standing in heaven, because she gave birth to the Savior, she brought Blessing to the lands of sinners.

The parapet at the bottom of the picture is the only barrier that separates the earthly world from the heavenly world. As if in reality, the green curtain has parted to the sides, and Mary with the divine son in her arms appears before your eyes. She walks, and it seems that now the Mother of God will step over the parapet and step on the ground, but this moment lasts forever. The Madonna remains motionless, always ready to descend and always inaccessible.

There is no earth or sky in the picture, there is no familiar landscape or architectural decoration in the depths. All the free space between the figures is filled with clouds, more dense and dark at the bottom, more transparent and radiant at the top. The heavy, senile figure of Saint Sixtus, buried in the heavy folds of the golden-woven papal vestments, froze in solemn worship. His hand extended to us eloquently emphasizes the main idea of the picture - the appearance of the Mother of God to people.

On the other side, Saint Barbara is leaning, and both figures seem to support Mary, forming a closed circle around her. Some call these figures auxiliary, secondary, but if you remove them (even if only mentally) or even slightly change their position in space, the harmony of the whole will immediately be destroyed. The meaning of the whole picture and the very image of Mary will change. Reverently and tenderly, Madonna presses her son, sitting in her arms, to her chest. Neither mother nor child can be imagined separately from each other; their existence is possible only in indissoluble unity. Mary, the human intercessor, carries her son towards the people. Her lonely procession expresses all the mournful and tragic sacrifice to which the Mother of God is doomed.

The world of “The Sistine Madonna” is unusually complex, although, at first glance, nothing in the picture foretells trouble. And yet, the viewer is haunted by a feeling of impending anxiety. A sweet-voiced choir of angels sings, filling the sky (background of the canvas) and praising Mary. The kneeling Sixtus does not take his rapturous gaze off the Mother of God, and Saint Barbara humbly lowered her eyes. It seems that nothing threatens the peace of Mary and her son. But alarming shadows run and run along the folds of clothes and draperies. Clouds swirl under the Madonna’s feet, the very radiance surrounding her and the Infant of God promises a storm.

All eyes characters the paintings are directed in different directions, and only Mary and the divine child are looking at us. Raphael depicted a wonderful vision on his canvas and accomplished the seemingly impossible. The whole picture is full of internal movement, illuminated by a quivering light, as if the canvas itself was emitting a mysterious glow. This light now barely glimmers, now shines, now almost sparkles. And this pre-storm state is reflected on the face of the infant Christ, his face is full of anxiety. He seems to see the lightning of an approaching thunderstorm, in his not childishly stern eyes a reflection of distant troubles is visible, for “I did not bring you peace, but a sword...”. He clings to his mother's breast, but restlessly peers into the world.

"Sistine Madonna" is a masterpiece, because it combines incompatible phenomena, such as the mortal human body and the sacredness of the spirit, as, characteristic of “ordinary” people, the birth of children and the atonement of sins through murder.

Everything is mixed up, everything argues with each other, but at the same time, one complements the other. Without the body it would be impossible to depict the woman who gave the world the Divine child, without the spirit there is no life in the body, without the natural birth of a child, how would people understand that they are also capable of following the righteous path from birth, as well as becoming sinless without atonement for sin.

So many emotions fit on one canvas, so many human minds and thoughts lay on the bed of knowledge of the truth, but only the author himself can say with confidence and without fiction what exactly he meant by combining incompatible things.

Posted on Allbest.ru

...

Worldwide fame

The painting, lost in one of the churches of provincial Piacenza, remained little known until the middle of the 18th century, when the Saxon Elector Augustus III, after two years of negotiations, received permission from Benedict XIV to take it to Dresden. Prior to this, Augustus' agents had tried to negotiate the purchase of Raphael's more famous works, which were located in Rome itself. A copy of the Sistine Madonna by Giuseppe Nogari remains in the Temple of San Sisto. A few decades later, after the publication of rave reviews by Goethe and Winckelmann, the new acquisition eclipsed Correggio's Holy Night as the main masterpiece of the Dresden collection.

Since Russian travelers began their grand tour precisely from Dresden, the “Sistine Madonna” became for them their first meeting with the heights of Italian art and therefore received deafening fame in Russia in the 19th century, surpassing all other Raphael Madonnas. Almost all artistically oriented Russian travelers to Europe wrote about her - N. M. Karamzin, V. A. Zhukovsky (“heavenly passing maiden”), V. Kuchelbecker (“divine creation”), A. A. Bestuzhev (“this is not Madonna, this is Raphael’s faith”), K. Bryullov, V. Belinsky (“the figure is strictly classical and not at all romantic”), A. I. Herzen, A. Fet, L. N. Tolstoy, I. Goncharov, I. Repin , F. M. Dostoevsky. A. S. Pushkin, who had not seen it with his own eyes, mentions this work several times.

World War II and storage in the USSR

After the war, the painting was kept in the storerooms of the Pushkin Museum until it was returned along with the entire Dresden collection to the authorities of the GDR in 1955. Before this, “Madonna” was presented to the Moscow public. V. S. Grossman responded to the farewell of “The Sistine Madonna” story of the same name, where he connected the famous image with his own memories of Treblinka:

Looking after the Sistine Madonna, we maintain the belief that life and freedom are one, that there is nothing higher than the human in man.

Description

The two angels depicted in the painting became the motif of numerous postcards and posters. Some art historians claim that these angels are leaning on the lid of the coffin. The left angel at the bottom of the picture has only one wing visible.

Disappointment

In philately

Reproduced on postage stamp GDR 1955.

Notes

http://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/de/contents/show?id=372144
https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/372144
Art critic Hubert Grimme insists that the painting was intended specifically for a funeral ceremony. He was prompted to research by a question: where did the wooden plank in the foreground of the picture on which the two angels rest come from? The next question was: how did it happen that an artist like Raphael had the idea to frame the sky with curtains? The researcher is convinced that the order for the “Sistine Madonna” was received in connection with the installation of a coffin for the solemn farewell to Pope Sixtus II. The pope's body was displayed for farewell in a side aisle of St. Peter's Basilica. Raphael's painting was installed on the coffin in a niche in this chapel. Raphael depicted how, from the depths of this niche framed by green curtains, the Madonna in the clouds approaches the pope’s coffin. During the funeral celebrations, the outstanding exhibition value of Raphael's painting was realized. Some time later, the painting ended up on the main altar of the monastery church in Piacenza. The basis of this exile was Catholic ritual. It prohibits the use of images displayed at funeral ceremonies for religious purposes on the main altar. Because of this ban, Raphael's creation to some extent lost its value. To get the appropriate price for the painting, the curia had no choice but to give its silent agreement to place the painting on the main altar. In order not to draw attention to this violation, the painting was sent to a fraternity in a distant provincial town.
Kommersant-Weekend - Home Madonna
Kommersant-Gazeta - Gala picture
Pushkin and Raphael (undefined) (unavailable link). Retrieved June 15, 2012. Archived March 7, 2012.
Sistine Madonna and Rabinovich
The epic of the rescue of Dresden (undefined) (unavailable link). Retrieved November 15, 2018.

Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio

Italian painter and architect. Graphic, representative of the Umbrian school.

Rafael lost his parents early. The mother, Margie Charla, died in 1491, and the father, Giovanni Santi, died in 1494.

Raphael, the son of the painter Giovanni Santi, spent his early years in Urbino. In 1500-1504, Raphael, according to Vasari, studied with the artist Perugino in Perugia. The works of this period of Raphael's work are marked by subtle poetry and soft lyricism of landscape backgrounds

From 1504, Raphael worked in Florence, where he became acquainted with the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolommeo, and studied anatomy and scientific perspective. Moving to Florence played a huge role in Raphael's creative development. Of primary importance for the artist was familiarity with the method of the great Leonardo da Vinci.

The first order in Florence comes from Agnolo Doni for portraits of him and his wife, the latter painted by Raphael under the obvious impression of La Gioconda. It was for Agnolo Doni that Michelangelo Buonarroti created the tondo “Madonna Doni” at this time.

In Florence, Raphael created about 20 Madonnas. Although the plots are standard: the Madonna either holds the Child in her arms, or he plays next to John the Baptist, all Madonnas are individual and are distinguished by their special maternal charm (apparently, the early death of his mother left a deep mark on Raphael’s soul).

Raphael received an invitation from Pope Julius II to Rome, where he was able to become more familiar with ancient monuments and took part in archaeological excavations.

Having moved to Rome, the 26-year-old master received the position of “artist of the Apostolic See” and the assignment to paint the state rooms of the Vatican Palace, from 1514 he directed the construction of St. Peter’s Cathedral, worked in the field of church and palace architecture, in 1515 he was appointed Commissioner of Antiquities, responsible for the study and protection of ancient monuments, archaeological excavations.

In the last years of his life, Raphael was so overloaded with orders that he entrusted the execution of many of them to his students and assistants (Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine, Perino del Vaga, Francesco Penni and others), usually limiting himself to general supervision of the works.

Raphael was also an architect. After Bramante's death, he completed the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. In addition, he built a church, a chapel, and several palazzos in Rome.

Raphael had many students, however, the most famous of them gained fame thanks to his pornographic drawings. Raphael could not tell his secrets to anyone. Later his paintings inspired Rubens, Rembrandt, Manet, Modigliani.

The artist lived for 37 years. It is impossible to say exactly the cause of death. Under one version, due to fever. According to another, because of intemperance, which has become a way of life. On his tomb in the Pantheon there is an epitaph: “Here lies the great Raphael, during whose life nature was afraid of being defeated, and after his death she was afraid to die.”

All his paintings, individually, are masterpieces. But today we will tell you about a painting called “The Sistine Madonna.”

Sistine Madonna

Madonna Sistina

A painting by Raphael, which has been in the Old Masters Gallery in Dresden since 1754. It belongs to the generally recognized peaks of the High Renaissance.

Of all the paintings, Raphael’s most perfect creation was the famous “Sistine Madonna” (1512-1513).

This painting was commissioned by Julius II for the altar of the church of the monastery of St. Sixtus in Piacenza. “The Sistine Madonna is truly symphonic. The interweaving and meeting of lines and masses of this canvas amazes with its internal rhythm and harmony. But the most phenomenal thing in this large canvas is the painter’s mysterious ability to bring all the lines, all the shapes, all the colors into such a wondrous correspondence that they serve only one, the artist’s main desire - to make us look, look tirelessly into the sad eyes of Mary.”

“I wanted to be an eternal viewer of one picture,” said Pushkin about the “Sistine Madonna.”

This Renaissance masterpiece was first painted by the artist without the help of his students and showed the Mother of God literally descending on the viewer, turning her soft gaze on him.

Many said that the painting was created at a time when Raphael was experiencing personal grief, so he put his sadness into the image of a beautiful maiden with sad eyes. In the mother's gaze, the viewer is able to read excitement and humility - feelings caused by the anticipation of the inevitable tragic fate own son. Madonna tenderly hugs the child to herself, as if sensing the moment when she will have to tear the tender baby away from her heart and introduce the Savior to humanity.

Initially, the “Sistine Madonna” was conceived as an altar image for the chapel of the monastery of St. Sixtus. At that time, for such work, craftsmen “trained their hands” on a wooden board, but Raphael Santi depicted the Mother of God on canvas, and soon her figure towered majestically above the semicircular choir of the church.
The artist depicted his Madonna barefoot, covered in a simple veil and devoid of an aura of holiness. In addition, many viewers noted that the woman was holding the child in her arms the way simple peasant women did. Despite the fact that the Virgin is deprived of the visible attributes of high origin, other characters in the picture greet her as a queen.

Young Barbara expresses reverence for the Madonna with her gaze, and Saint Sixtus kneels before her and extends his hand, which marks the symbol of the appearance of the Mother of God to people. If you look closely, it seems as if Sixt’s outstretched hand “flaunts” six fingers. There were legends that by doing so Rafael wanted to beat original name bishop of Rome, which is translated from Latin as “sixth.” In fact, the presence of an extra finger is just an illusion, and the viewer sees inner side Sixtus's palms.

–The more you look, the more you feel the incomprehensibility of these beauties: every feature is considered, filled with an expression of grace, connected with in the strictest style. Karl Bryullov.

There are many legends surrounding this painting.

One of them says that the prototype of the legendary Madonna was Fornarina, the artist’s beloved woman and model. But in a friendly letter to Baldassare Castiglione, the master said that he created the image of perfect beauty not from a specific girl, but synthesized his impressions from many beauties that Raphael was destined to meet.

According to Stam, “his forehead (the Christ child) is not childishly high, and his eyes are not at all childishly serious. However, in their gaze we see neither edification, nor forgiveness, nor reconciling consolation... His eyes look at the world that has opened before them intently, intensely, with bewilderment and fear.” And at the same time, in the gaze of Christ one can read the determination to follow the will of God the Father, the determination to sacrifice oneself for the salvation of humanity.

Raphael painted the holy pope pointing with his right hand at the altar crucifix. It is curious that the artist depicted six fingers on the pontiff’s hand - another six encrypted in the painting. Left hand the high priest is pressed to his chest - as a sign of devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Some believe that Raphael depicted the clouds as singing angels. In fact, according to the teachings of the Gnostics, these are not angels, but not yet born souls who reside in heaven and glorify the Almighty.

Raphael received the order to paint the canvas from Pope Julius II. Thus, the pontiff wanted to celebrate the inclusion of Piacenza (a town 60 km southeast of Milan) into the Papal States. The territory was recaptured from the French during the struggle for northern Italian lands. In Piacenza there was the monastery of St. Sixtus, the patron saint of the Rovere family, to which the pontiff belonged. The monks actively campaigned for annexation to Rome, for which Julius II decided to thank them and ordered an altar image from Raphael in which the Mother of God appears to Saint Sixtus.

It must be said that fame came to her much later after it was written. For two centuries it gathered dust in Piacenza, until mid-18th century centuries, Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, did not buy it, and did not take it to Dresden. Despite the fact that at that time the painting was not considered Raphael’s masterpiece, the monks bargained for two years and raised the price. It didn’t matter to August whether to buy this painting or another, the main thing was Raphael’s brushes. It was his paintings that were missing from the Elector’s collection.

When the Sistine Madonna was brought to Dresden, Augustus III allegedly personally pushed back his throne with the words: “Make way for the great Raphael!” when the bearers hesitated, carrying the masterpiece through the halls of his palace.

The canvas miraculously survived the Second World War. Dresden itself was destroyed to the ground. But the Sistine Madonna, like other paintings in the Dresden Gallery, was hidden in a freight car standing on the rails in an abandoned quarry 30 km south of the city. In May 1945, Soviet troops found the paintings and brought them to the USSR. Raphael's masterpiece was kept in storage rooms Pushkin Museum 10 years until it was returned along with the entire Dresden collection to the GDR authorities in 1955.

Source-Internet

“The Sistine Madonna” - the mystery of the painting by the great Italian artist Raphael Santi updated: December 1, 2017 by: website

Raphael "Sistine Madonna":
History of the painting

Rafael was happy artist Absorbed by an abundance of honorable and grandiose orders, glorified by his admirers, he worked quickly and joyfully. Creativity was never a bitter torment for him.

Humanists contemporary to Raphael believed that in order to be understandable to the people, the poet must speak in the language “vulgare”. For the same purposes, some Renaissance artists turned to ancient folk legends and colored them with the colors of their imagination.
In Raphael's painting, the appearance of the Madonna to the deceased Pope Julius II turned into an appearance to her people, which was told about in ancient legends. In such legends, the people’s aspirations for justice, desire and need were expressed. ordinary people imagine the heavenly queen and patroness in close proximity. However, Raphael did not limit himself to just retelling the medieval legend.

In the history of the creation of Raphael’s most famous work, much is still shrouded in mystery. Some art historians believe that his Mary has almost lost the halo of holiness - the crown does not shimmer on her head, there are no brocade fabrics behind her. On the contrary, she is wearing a blanket and a cloak of smooth fabric, her feet are bare, and, in essence, she is a simple woman. No wonder many people noticed that she was holding the baby the way peasant women usually hold them. But this barefoot woman is admired by the wind as a queen - the mistress of heaven. Pope Sixtus took off the tiara in front of her and carefully placed it in the corner. The earthly ruler, like the Magi before the Christmas manger, bares his forehead, and an old man appears before the viewer, almost trembling with excitement.

Other researchers believe that in this solemn Madonna, on the contrary, there is nothing earthly - this is a deity clothed in human form. Her face still resembles the familiar features of Fornarina, but the features are transformed. Surrounded by a host of angels, standing on the clouds, the Madonna presents to the world her divine Son.

Different generations, different people each saw their own in the “Sistine Madonna.” Some saw in it only religious content, others saw the moral philosophy hidden in it, and others valued artistic perfection in it. But these three aspects are inseparable from each other

Raphael created the Sistine Madonna around 1516. By this time, he had already painted many paintings depicting the Mother of God. Very young, Raphael became famous as an amazing master and incomparable poet of the image of the Madonna. The St. Petersburg Hermitage houses the Conestabile Madonna, which was created by a seventeen-year-old artist. In the Pitti Gallery there is his “Madonna in an Armchair”, in the Prado Museum - “Madonna with a Fish”, in the Vatican Pinacoteca - “Madonna del Foligno”, other Madonnas have become treasures of other museums. But when the time came to write his main work, Raphael left numerous works to his students in the Vatican Palace in order to paint with his own hands an altarpiece for the monastery church of St. Sixtus in distant Piacenza.

On the other side, Saint Barbara is leaning, and both figures seem to support Mary, forming a closed circle around her. Some call these figures auxiliary, secondary, but if you remove them (even if only mentally) or even slightly change their position in space, the harmony of the whole will immediately be destroyed. The meaning of the whole picture and the very image of Mary will change.
Reverently and tenderly, Madonna presses her son, sitting in her arms, to her chest. Neither mother nor child can be imagined separately from each other; their existence is possible only in indissoluble unity. Mary, the human intercessor, carries her son towards the people. Her lonely procession expresses all the mournful and tragic sacrifice to which the Mother of God is doomed.

All the gazes of the characters in the picture are directed in different directions, and only Mary and the divine child look at us. Raphael depicted a wonderful vision on his canvas and accomplished the seemingly impossible. The whole picture is full of internal movement, illuminated by a quivering light, as if the canvas itself was emitting a mysterious glow. This light now barely glimmers, now shines, now almost sparkles. And this pre-storm state is reflected on the face of the infant Christ, his face is full of anxiety. He seems to see the lightning of an approaching thunderstorm, in his childishly stern eyes a reflection of distant troubles is visible, for “I did not bring you peace, but a sword...”. He clings to his mother's breast, but restlessly peers into the world. . The Russian poet N. Ogarev spoke about Raphael:
“How he understood this child, sad and thoughtful, who “anticipates his great future.”

They say that Raphael wrote The Sistine Madonna at a time when he himself was experiencing severe grief. And therefore he put all his sadness into the divine face of his Madonna - the most perfect embodiment of the ideal in Christianity. He created the most beautiful image of the Mother of God, combining in it the features of the highest religious ideality with the highest humanity.

The “Sistine Madonna” has long been admired, and many beautiful words have been said about her. And in the last century, Russian writers and artists, as if on a pilgrimage, went to Dresden - to the “Sistine Madonna”. They saw in her not only a perfect work of art, but also the highest measure of human nobility.

V.A. Zhukovsky speaks of the “Sistine Madonna” as an embodied miracle, as a poetic revelation, and admits that it was created not for the eyes, but for the soul: “This is not a picture, but a vision; The longer you look, the more convinced you are that something unnatural is happening in front of you...
And this is not a deception of the imagination: it is not seduced here by the liveliness of the colors or the outer brilliance. Here the soul of the painter, without any tricks of art, but with amazing ease and simplicity, conveyed to the canvas the miracle that took place in its interior.” A.S. Pushkin knew the painting from an engraving reproduction, and it made a very strong impression on him. The poet repeatedly recalled Raphael's masterpiece, and, praising the pensive eyes of the shy beauty, he likens her to Raphael's angel.

The most enthusiastic admirer of “The Sistine Madonna” among Russian writers was F.M. Dostoevsky. Once he was vehemently indignant when, in his presence, a certain artist began to analyze the artistic merits of a painting in professional language. Many heroes of the writer's novels are characterized through their attitude to Raphael's Madonna.
For example, in spiritual development Arkady (“Teenager”) leaves a deep impression on the engraving he saw depicting the Madonna.
The governor's wife Yulia Mikhailovna (“Demons”) spent two hours in front of the painting, but, as a society lady, she did not understand anything about it.
Stepan Trofimovich, on the contrary, feels an urgent need to write about this masterpiece, but he was never destined to fulfill his intention.
Svidrigailov (“Crime and Punishment”) recalls the face of the Madonna, whom he calls the “mournful holy fool,” and this statement allows the reader to see the depth of his moral decline.

Russian artists also carefully studied the Sistine Madonna.
Karl Bryullov admired: “The more you look, the more you feel the incomprehensibility of these beauties: every feature is thought out, filled with an expression of grace, combined with the strictest style.”
A. Ivanov copied her and was tormented by the consciousness of his inability to grasp her main charm.
Kramskoy admitted in a letter to his wife that only in the original he noticed many things that were not noticeable in any of the copies. He was especially interested in the universal human meaning of Raphael’s creation:
“This is something really almost impossible...
Whether Mary really was the way she is depicted here, no one ever knew and, of course, does not know, with the exception of her contemporaries, who, however, do not tell us anything good about her. But this, at least, was created by the religious feelings and beliefs of mankind... Raphael's Madonna is truly a great work and truly eternal, even when humanity ceases to believe, when scientific research... reveals the truly historical features of both of these persons6.. . and then the picture will not lose its value, but only its role will change.”

And during the Second World War, humanity could have lost Raphael’s masterpiece forever. Before their collapse, the Nazis hid the paintings of the famous Dresden Gallery in damp limestone mines and were ready to completely blow up and destroy priceless treasures so that they would not fall into the hands of the Russians. But by order of the Soviet command, soldiers of the First Ukrainian Front spent two months searching for the greatest masterpieces of the Gallery.
The “Sistine Madonna” of the great Raphael was in a box made of thin but strong and well-finished planks. At the bottom of the box there was thick cardboard, and inside the box there was a frame covered with felt, on which the painting rested. But during the war, the box could not serve as reliable protection. In an instant it could burst into flames, and...
When the box was opened, a wondrous woman appeared before the people, her radiant eyes wide open, unearthly beauty with a divine baby in her arms. And Soviet soldiers and officers, who had walked the hard roads of war for several years, took off their caps and caps in front of her...
"One Hundred Great Paintings" by N.A. Ionin, Veche Publishing House, 2002

Spring 1945. Units of the Soviet troops and the Allied army took the exhausted Dresden, destroyed almost to the ground. The day before, it was subjected to one of the worst bombings in the history of World War II. The so-called “rescue team” began searching for the masterpieces of the Dresden Gallery. Soviet army. This commission included not only military personnel, but also restorers, scientists, and artists. Dresden masterpieces were found in a damp limestone mine. When they opened the box where one of the canvases lay, the men, seeing the picture, silently took off their caps and caps. The stern Soviet soldiers, who had faced only death and grief for several war years, were shocked by the image of a woman of wondrous beauty and her divine baby.

...1515. Black monks knocked on Raphael's Roman workshop. They reported that they served God in the distant monastery of St. Sixtus, located in the quiet city of Piacenza, and they traveled such a difficult path to order an altar image for the chapel of their monastery from the famous maestro. In his chapel the relics of Sixtus and St. Barbara are kept.

-Who should I portray? - Raphael asked, bowing his head respectfully.

“Madonna,” answered the monks. - The Blessed Virgin and her son, Jesus Christ.

“Okay,” said Raphael. - I will fulfill your request.

After the monks left the maestro’s workshop, Raphael stretched a huge canvas onto a stretcher and, without any outside help, began to paint the picture. By the way, these seemingly natural actions in this situation contain at least two events that go beyond the ordinary. Firstly, altar images were then painted exclusively on boards, but for the “Sistine Madonna” Raphael chose an elastic canvas with its rough texture, and secondly, Raphael, a famous Roman artist, was surrounded by numerous students by the time the black monks arrived. They usually diligently “finished” what the teacher sketched on canvases at the orders of influential Romans. Rafael simply physically could not complete all the work, so he could not cope without students.

RACE WITH MICHELANGELO

Raphael Santi was born in the Italian city of Urbino in 1483 and already in early childhood lost his mother; This sad event made the topic of motherhood the most important in his thoughts and creativity. The artist began to study painting in hometown, from the famous maestro Perugino. The diligent young man diligently pored over the teacher’s assignments and thoroughly studied the works of the giants of painting who worked before him. Raphael spent seven years under the wing of his teacher, and in 1508 he went to the Vatican. Artists of past centuries, in order to be known, talked about, understood, loved, had to achieve recognition in big cities, under the aegis of powerful of the world this. And Raphael did not invent anything new when he arrived at the court of Pope Julius II, taking advantage of the recommendation of the architect Donato Bramante, who was his relative. At this moment he turned 25 years old - the most wonderful age to conquer the world. During receptions, the young man wandered among the crowd of noble people - the most holy cardinals, nobles, beautiful ladies, admiring the jewelry, outfits, and decoration of the papal chambers. None of those present could even imagine that five years later this Urbino resident, dressed all in black, would become the head of the Roman school of painting, creating frescoes that would perpetuate the name of Pope Julius II and become textbook examples for artists of the classical movement. Despite all the fragility of his creative nature, Raphael had amazing strength of character and the tenacity of a fearless warrior. While painting the Vatican, he set himself an ambitious goal - to surpass the Renaissance titan Michelangelo, to create such wall paintings that, having seen them, the viewer would forget about the existence of Buonarroti, at least for a moment. However, Raphael did not chase praise, although it constantly rained down on his head from papal guests who predicted a great future for him. Like a true genius, he trusted only one critic - himself.

By the age of 30, Raphael had achieved unprecedented success. His days were scheduled minute by minute. He worked incredibly hard, but at the same time managed to be friends with the popes: both Julius II and Leo X sincerely loved him. The artist easily found a common language with the brilliant personalities of his time. Raphael was naturally gifted with the gift of personal charm; his contemporaries claimed that after communicating with the maestro, the feeling that you had bathed in affectionate sun rays. Yet he remained a stranger in the crowd of nobles, a thin, silent youth in black robes who silently attended papal receptions. They wanted to tame him, to control his life: Cardinal Bibiene dreamed of marrying his niece to him, the fabulously wealthy philanthropist Agostino Chiaggi hoped to make a close friend out of the Urbino resident. Dozens of times Raphael listened to proposals from noble and rich people to move to their palaces and castles in order to settle there and become a “pocket” artist. He was offered a sweet life in exchange for personal freedom. But that’s not why the artist from Urbino came to Rome. He came to reach the heights of art, and no one could push Raphael off his intended path. It was at this moment that black monks from the monastery of St. Sixtus turned to him.

DISCOVERY dossier

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) - sculptor, painter, architect and thinker. He became a symbol of the Renaissance, revolutionizing the art world. The world famous statue of David, which became the ideal embodiment of the human body, and St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome belong to his genius. Michelangelo was one of the first to capture the distorted grace of the deceased in stone. However, it was in painting that he became a true innovator. Ceiling painting done by him Sistine Chapel, depicting biblical scenes from the creation of the world to the flood and including more than 300 figures, is recognized as one of the most valuable exhibits of the world cultural heritage.

HOLY SINNER

So, contrary to the established routine, Raphael himself wrote “The Sistine Madonna” - from the first sketch to the final brush stroke. The customers came for the painting on time, and the maestro presented them with his unsurpassed work, in which there was a certain merit of his model, who, not for the first time, donated her features to Raphael’s Madonnas. Her name was Margarita Luti, and she was the daughter of a baker. Thanks to her father’s profession, Margarita received a nickname that has remained for centuries - Fornarina (Baker). Raphael met this girl of amazing beauty while walking along the banks of the Tiber. He was 31 years old, she was 17. Fornarina had a fiancé - a shepherd, and every man he met looked back at her. And she happily turned everyone’s heads. Raphael fell in love with the beautiful Margarita so much that he generously paid her father for the right to be with her. Did the girl love Raphael? This question will remain unanswered. The beauty endlessly cheated on the artist; many stories are woven into her life story. male names. Many consider Fornarina to be the unwitting culprit of Raphael's early death - the great Urbino died at the age of 37. Raphael bequeathed considerable funds to his passion. According to some sources, Fornarina became the most luxurious courtesan in Rome and it is unknown how she ended her life; according to others, a few years after the death of Raphael, she entered a monastery and ended her days as a modest nun. The name of this woman is shrouded in many legends and speculations, but it is reliably known that, ironically, it was this earthly woman, full of passions, who became the prototype of the Holy Virgin Mary. In the monastery of St. Sixtus, Raphael's Madonna was located above the altar directly opposite the large crucifix depicting the torment of Christ. So, according to the author’s intention, the eyes of the Madonna and Child are directed at the dying Jesus.

Like any masterpiece, The Sistine Madonna is fraught with many small and big secrets. But the main one lies in the look of young Mary. She looks at every viewer, and no matter where you stand - in the corner of the hall or in front of the painting itself - Madonna looks exactly at you. And at the same time - far, far away, straight into the future, foreseeing with a mother’s heart the torment that her divine son will have to endure. Maria's look was generated by the brilliant talent of Raphael. This is an inexplicable miracle; it cannot be broken down into its components and then repeated. But the magic doesn't end there. Pope Sixtus II suffered martyrdom in 258, for which he was canonized. Raphael decided to encrypt the name of the martyr-pope in his painting. Art critics believe that the artist did it twice. In Latin, the word "sixtus" means six. There are exactly six figures in the picture: the Blessed Virgin, Jesus, Pope Sixtus II, Saint Barbara (patron of the city of Piacenza) and two angels. But this seemed not enough to Raphael: he depicted six fingers on right hand dads. You don’t immediately realize that the “sixth finger” is actually part of the palm of the holy martyr. In the story, Mary walks on a cloud, carrying a baby in her arms. It seems that she is floating in the air against the backdrop of clouds swirling in the distance. But if you look closely, the outlines of faces begin to emerge from the haze, as if alive. It turns out that these are not clouds at all, but hundreds of angels, closed in a living wall behind the Mother of God.

HOMECOMING

In 1754, King Augustus III of Saxony bought the painting from the monastery for 20 thousand sequins and brought it to his Dresden residence. Since 1831, all museums in Germany became a national treasure, and everyone could visit them. After World War II, 1,240 rescued works from the Dresden Gallery were brought to Moscow so that specialists could restore them. These most complex works were supervised by the famous Soviet artist Pavel Korin. The Germans insisted: the Dresden masterpieces would never see their native lands again. But in 1955, the restored works of art were officially returned to the GDR. So Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” returned to the Dresden Gallery and to this day attracts numerous spectators.