Raphael's School Of Athens Analysis

Raphael 's School of Athens
The work of art I chose for this assignment is one of a series of frescoes by the renaissance artist Raphael. The School of Athens is large, measuring 300 inches wide by 200 inches tall, and is part of a series of frescoes commissioned by Pope Julius II for what is now known as the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The work was completed by Raphael between 1509-1511, and is generally agreed upon to be the second work completed there. Originally titled Causarum Cognitio (Knowledge of Causes), it is commonly referred to as Raphael 's masterpiece (Wikipedia, The School of Athens).
The portrait is bright and full of vibrance and color, all neatly framed for us by an ornate, semicircular archway.
The painting is two-dimensional, but a one-point linear perspective is used to give an appearance of three dimensions, with the vanishing point in the very center of the frame. We see Plato and Aristotle standing here, the central focus of the piece, surrounded by a ring of philosophers and great thinkers. Many of the figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Euclid, are undisputedly identifiable. Others are more hypothetical and not always agreed upon as to who they are. For instance, where the abovementioned Wikipedia entry speculates on several identities for over twenty of the subjects pictured, the scholars over at the Media Center for Art History at Columbia only assign names to nine figures total, and appear to be sure of those they assign. Joseph Phelan seemed to be much more confident in his research, placing concrete names on nineteen subjects (The Philosopher as Hero: the School of Athens).
The painting is very busy and full of movement. To the left, Socrates stands in conversation with a group of people, one of whom appears to be Alexander of Macedonia, standing beneath a statue of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun and light. Pythagoras is in the bottom of the frame almost directly below, poring over a book with a few onlookers surrounding. To his right, Heraclitus (a portrait of Michelangelo) is propped on one elbow against a small block of marble, writing on a sheet of paper. Diogenes (or Socrates, depending on whose opinion you 're hearing) reclines on the stairs next to him, and moving to the right, we find another group, with Euclid in the center, bent forward using a compass. Others in the group include what is believed to be Ptolemy and Zoroaster, and what is undeniable Raphael himself standing in their midst. Directly above them, and opposite Apollo, a statue of the goddess Athena fills the neighboring recess.
This painting seems to be defined by the archway that frames it.
The fresco itself is bathed in light, with the only real darker color values present in the shadows of the gathered people, and inside the overhead archways. These archways mirror the edge of the painting, and their high, patterned ceilings imply a much larger, more open area than where we stand viewing from, which creates an incredible sense of space between this recessed area and the crowd beyond. Shape-wise, these semicircles seem to be the singular standout element of the entire work, and they keep drawing our eyes down and towards the people in the center. The interior of their arches are mesmerizing patterns of hexagons connected by smaller diamond shapes, and a lively element where a plain surface would normally be. Squares and rectangles appear throughout the image as well, from the elongated rectangles forming the columns that support the archways, to the squares framing the small statues below those of Apollo and Athena. A repeating pattern of concentric squares of deep red set against the pale marble gives us the foreground of the piece. There is one cube present as well, that which Heraclitus is propped against. Interestingly, it seems to utilize its own two-point perspective, and appears to be the only item in the picture that breaks from perspective this
way.
The thing I see as the most striking element is the overall weight and balance of the fresco.
there 's a nearly flawless symmetry between the left and right sides; the archways and receding columns are such mirror images that it makes one wonder at how they achieved this on such a large scale in their time. Further creating a balance, Raphael nearly evenly divided the people between each side of the painting - there are 29 on the left side of the center line, and 28 are scattered on the right. There also seems to be a balance between top and bottom, as the open archways become smaller and narrower as they recede towards the center, so is there a somewhat clear area in the foreground that narrows as it nears the two subjects at the center point. Looking from them through the rest of the crowd, I notice a large amount of variety in the types of clothes the people are wearing, but more at the variety of colors on display. No two garments are shaded the same, and a quick glance over the crowd provides a whirlwind of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Despite the contrast, this does provide a sense of unity to the image, making the individuals and groups all seem as one whole, even though they are spread across the image. I get a real sense of movement from the crowd as well, from the central focus of Plato and Aristotle, moving left through the crowd we see outstretched and pointing hands which seem to guide the way from one person to the next, and then back down towards
Pythagoras and the center, where Heraclitus sits, and Diogenes (or Socrates) is lounging on the steps. His legs half-extended out to the right point us to the group at which Euclid is the center, which in turn encourages us to meander up and then back towards the center. It is only when we really look at the marble columns and arches that we realize they take up almost exactly half of the fresco, with an not-quite straight line formed by the tops of the heads of people in the crowd.
I chose this painting because the Renaissance artists have always fascinated me, and I have particular interest in a lot of the works commissioned by the Roman-Catholic Church throughout history, even though I do not particularly care for the style of artwork. This painting, like many others, holds so much interest for me because of the turbulent history the church had with science. The Catholic Church of the time vehemently opposed scientific discoveries, sometimes violently, but also commissioned many works displaying an almost reverence for those same ideas and thinkers. I notice that this work is a virtual altar to science and the questioning of our origins, with the only real divisions seeming to be that the philosophers are on the left side of the painting, while those who were more purely scientists seem to be gathered on the right. The thing that intrigued me most is actually in the group of scientists on the right, in the form of Raphael. I think it speaks to a great conviction he must have had that he would be revered in history that he placed himself in this painting, but it also tends to make me wonder about the placement and why he placed himself in that particular spot, near Euclid and Ptolemy, instead of any of the numerous other figures he could have been near. I like art that leaves us with questions despite being painfully realistic, and there are plenty of things in this work by Raphael that are left open to debate.

"The School of Athens", 200" x 300" Fresco by Raphael
Stanze de Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace, Vatican
1509-1511

Works Cited
Phelan, Joseph “The Philosopher as Hero: Raphael’s School of Athens” Artcyclopedia: The Guide to Great Art Online. Specifica, Inc., Sept 2002. Web. 12 Mar 2015 <http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2002-09.html>
"The School of Athens." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 11 Feb 2015. Web. 26 Feb 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens>
"The School of Athens: Raphael." Media Center for Art History at Columbia. Columbia University, 2015. Web. 24 Feb 2015. <http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/raphael/htm/raphael_philo.htm>