Marina Estevez Torreblanca |
Madrid (EFE).- Rafaello Sanzio de Urbino, Rafael, born in 1483, shone in his 37 years of life as a painter and architect, a Renaissance “Uomo universale” whose work has now been condensed “with broad criteria” regarding the attribution in the most complete volume published to date.
“Rafael: The complete work. Paintings, frescoes, tapestries, architecture”, published by Taschen in XXL format, provides over 720 pages with new photographs, detailed images and a series of analyzes carried out by internationally renowned experts to provide “a totally new vision of his work ”, assures the publisher.
The volume includes paintings, frescoes, tapestries and architectural works, as far as possible also those whose authorship generates controversy among researchers, although always expressly alluding to this circumstance in the comments.
“The objective of the catalog is to include all the works made personally by Rafael that are preserved until today. But, in parallel, Rafael managed to establish a broad concept of work that generally encompassed all the production of his workshop, which was getting bigger and more productive ”, they point out.
As Professor Michael Rohlmann defends in the volume, “whoever intends to generously distribute the authorship of the artist’s late works among his disciples, will deprive the master of some of his most beautiful and successful creations.”
Thus, works such as the “Portrait of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena” or “The fall on the road to Calvary” are included, attributed in both cases to the master together with his workshop.
Raphael (1483-1520) portrayed great personages and nobles, such as Pope Julius II with an abstracted expression that the National Gallery preserves, as well as close friends or his lover, “La Fornarina”, largely nude. He also designed entire worlds of images based on history, religion, myth and love.
Considered along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci one of the most important artists of the Italian High Renaissance, his career took him from the princely court of Urbino (where he was born on April 6 according to some sources, March 28 according to others) to Umbria. , Florence and Papal Rome.
The architect Raphael
There, converted into a “star painter” for works such as the “Sistine Madonna” or the greatness of “The School of Athens”, he was an art entrepreneur and succeeded Bramante as master builder of the works of the Basilica of San Pedro.
This fact, together with the completion of the Chigi Chapel started by Bernini and the execution of the Vatican lodges and part of Villa Madama give an idea of the importance of Raphael as an architect, less explored than his facet as a painter.
“Although Rafael only had a little over seven years to dedicate himself to architectural work, with it he achieved a pioneering historical influence that has set standards until the beginning of the 21st century,” says historian Georg Satzinger in the book.
catalog raisonné
The volume includes a series of chapters and texts edited by Frank Zöllner that introduce the reader to the fascinating relationship between art and power in the Renaissance. Also a powerful photographic sampler of a hundred paintings and numerous murals, including nine series of frescoes with different themes, which are preserved by the master.
It ends with a catalog raisonné of all the works of the artist, whose influence has survived even in times when the prevailing style was diametrically opposed to Raphael’s, suffused with beauty, enigmatic grace and artistic lightness.